


It's All In A File

by Borfin



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst and Humor, Because I refuse to accept, But that's the town guard's job, Canonically Impossible Choices, Casual Handling of Everyone, Casual Handling of the Aedra, Flashbacks, Flashbacks of torture, Forced Drunkeness, Handwaving of Tamrielic Lore in general, Handwaving of magic, Handwaving of religion, Humanity is infectious, Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Moderately Successful Interrogations, Moderately Unsuccessful Interrogations, Mostly so, Named Stormcloak Soldiers, No Plot/Plotless, Nords in general, On Who He Imprisons, PTSD, Racism, References to Oblivion, References to Torture, Skyrim Logic in general, Thalmor in general, Ulfric should probably keep more of an eye, Vampires, Violence, Violence to Prisoners, attempted humiliation, or at least, switching POVs, tbh, that Ulfric calls them just "Stormcloak Soldier.", unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 47
Words: 132,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6786763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Borfin/pseuds/Borfin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's paperwork, in the end, that dooms Ondolemar. A mistake, but a fitting one. He's always hated it. He never expected to live through Markarth's fall. He never anticipated there would come a day he actually respected a Nord.</p><p>Work-in-Progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

##  **Prelude**

It was paperwork that doomed him.

Fitting, perhaps. Ondolemar had always loathed it.

As a young mer, the academy tutors had shaken their heads at his abysmal test results on such topics as philosophy, linguistics and the finer points of magical theory. To such questions as, “What is the nature of magic?”, and “Why does the essence of an alchemy reagent change with the environment of growth?” his answer (internally) had always been that did, and that since it did, finding out what did what _when_ was a lot more important than _why_ and (externally) that it was the will of Auri-El. His mother had given him long talks about family, heritage and duty. His father, a sterner mer, had threatened to annex him from the family registry if all he could amount to was a social disgrace, but the fact remained that Ondolemar was no scholar.

He'd coped. He was a superior mer, after all, and in his veins ran some of the most golden blood in Alinor. The test answers he could not steal from his teachers, he bought. The answers he could not buy from his teachers, he bullied or bribed his classmates into providing for him. While they studied “Aedra and Daedra,” he ditched his classes entirely to attend secret meetings with the Thalmor in an age when the Septims still ruled the empire and the Thalmor were dismissed as a faction of dangerous extremists.

A lack of scholarly insight, Ondolemar had found, was no barrier to mastery of the more practical arcane arts. A skilled agent, diligent and dedicated in his faith and his commitment to the advancement and purity of the Altmer race, it was only natural he'd climbed quickly through the ranks, once the Thalmor influence had spread widely enough to possess them.

Still, inevitably, each climb in rank was accompanied by more paperwork.

Reports from spies that needed to be summarised and passed on. Reports on worshipers of the Daedra. Suspected worshipers of the Daedra. Suspected worshipers of Talos… Supplies. Foresworn activity. The rising influence of the Thieves Guild…

The Dominion liked receiving reports entirely too much.

Not, of course, that Ondolemar would dream of telling them so.

And so, two days before the lot of them were due, he'd diligently settled himself into the mind-numbing task of writing them. It was not his fault that he'd spent the last three days prior to this on a stake-out near the not-so-secret shrine of Talos, recording the names of all who went inside and absolutely _not_ putting off his paperwork until the last possible moment of possible completion. It's not his fault that he muffled the door so that he wouldn't keep getting distracted from his writing by yet another complaint by that Talos-loving Silver-Blood who seemed to have made Understone Keep a second home, and whom he was convinced should have been carted off to Northwatch Keep decades ago.

It was not his fault that Kaiya, who loathed this Auri-El forsaken pit as much as he did, and who he knew was hoping he'd put in a word for her and get her transferred back to Alinor, had stoked the fire up so warmly and left a bearskin rug on top of the hard, cold stone bench he usually sat on to write.

It _might_ be his fault that he'd given both Kaiya and Sariel, his guards, the same evening off, but surely Auri-El ought to have been merciful when Ondolemar's logic had merely been that at least _one_ Thalmor in Markarth deserved to be having a hot meal and some Alinor wine instead of wrestling with bleary eyes and cramped fingers over obstinate, coded paperwork which seemed, illogically, to spawn errors at a rate exponentially proportionate to the number of times one tried to correct them?

He had not _meant_ to fall asleep.

Surely, surely, that mitigated his guilt in this.

Surely his Lord could spare a moment or two to _help_ a distant descendant?

But Auri-El, it seemed, did not share in this belief, because the first thing he felt-- wakened by the sudden cooling of the room, and then, stirred to alertness far too slowly by the distant shouting-- was rough hands slamming his head into the stone table in front of him, once, twice, while two more Nords-- unworthy wretches-- held his hands down, trapping them open against the table, preventing him from employing the powerful, destructive spells for which he instinctively reached.

“Do you know who I am?” he snarled, or meant to, only his face was slammed into the table again and his words came out more like, “Mm mm whmm mm?”

Someone laughed.

If he survived this, he fully intended to eviscerate them.

Another slam.

If he lived, he also vowed, mentally, to hunt down whoever set the fashion for solid stone furniture in Markarth.

Even if it was a Dwemer, he, Ondolemar, would hunt them down to wherever their wretched race had vanished, and have them carted off to Northwatch Keep to be killed again.

“The Thalmor will--,” another slam. His treacherous mind wavered. Darkness threatened him. Uselessly, desperately, he struggled against the humiliation. Dead at his desk, killed by mere unranked Stormcloak soldiers because he fell asleep while filing reports for Elenwen.

His last, dim thought was a hope that his guards did not come back for him.

He wanted no witnesses to this.

This was such an undignified way to die.


	2. The Journey to Windhelm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Journey to Windhelm

Their yellow-skinned captive was, some men said, not very cooperative.

That was putting the matter much too gently, in Galmar Stone-Fist's opinion. The snooty, spoiled, pointy-eared Thalmor was a right pain in the arse. When he woke, the first thing the damn elf tried to do was use his magic to escape. That had been messy for a bit, but no single elf could last long against a whole camp of the true sons and daughters of Skyrim. He went down cursing, and Galmar gave orders for him to be gagged and chained feet, neck and body to a sturdy post. For his hands, their smith forged shackles, in appearance similar to iron gloves, that were molded closely enough to the elf to ensure those yellow fingers had no room left to waggle at all.

When he learned that they could not save Valhd and Enod, Galmar beat the Thalmor until his knuckles hurt through his gauntlets and the elf sagged in his chains, bleeding and unconscious.

A body's worth of bruising and whatever else Galmar had broken should have tamed him.

Everyone knew that elves were milk-drinkers without their spells.

But there was fire in the prisoner's eyes when they dragged him from the post, not the flinching terror Galmar _wanted_ to see, and when they ungagged him and shoved a skin of water into his mouth, he spat the liquid out as if they'd poisoned him and started whining about Thalmor justice-- Ha! As if such a thing existed!-- until Galmar lost his patience and gagged him again. It had been two days since the obnoxious bastard had either eaten or drunk, but if he was well enough to rant, he'd survive. Maybe when the elf was fainting from starvation, Galmar would feel less like ramming a sword through his gullet.

Galmar doubted it though.

He hated the Thalmor.

He hated what they'd done to the once-proud Empire of his youth.

He hated what they still did to his fellow Nords courageous enough not deny their God.

He hated what they'd done to Ulfric all those years ago.

If it had been his choice, the elf wouldn't have survived Markarth. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Ulfric Stormcloak's orders were that the leader of Skyrim's Justiciars was to be brought to Windhelm to serve as an example, once he'd been questioned.

Had Ulfric commanded it, Galmar would gladly have dived head first into the gullet of a dragon. Not killing this prisoner was proving more of a challenge, but Galmar was damn-well going to do his utmost not to fail the true King of Skyrim.

They'd made it half-way through the Pale when the snowstorm started.

“We'll be needing to stop soon,” Derk shouted, above the wind, “There's enemy camps in these parts, and the mountain paths are too dangerous to take blind.”

A good man, Derk. A good Nord. He'd lost a sister in this war, and a father.

It was wisdom, not cowardice, that made him cautious.

“Aye,” Galmar concurred, “You aren't wrong. Pick up what food and wood you can while you can still see. When we can't see our hands before us, we make camp. And,” a fierce grin, unfriendly, toward the shivering prisoner who had forced _hundreds_ of Talos' own to walk through the snow bare-foot to the torture chambers of the north, “Let's see how one of the pointy-ears deals with a blizzard without fire to warm him.”

A few of his men laughed. A few didn't.

Easy to tell which men had lost loved ones to the yellow bastards and which hadn't.

It was miserable work pitching tents in the howling wind, but Galmar met the challenge laughing, and his men followed suit. Let the weather rage! It's harshness was one more reason to love his homeland. None of them could strike fire on the sodden wood in this wind, so they would be forced to make do with cold meat and mead. But the mead would be enough to warm them, Galmar knew, mixed as it was with the exultation of having taken the Reach. He'd had his doubts about the Stormcloak's newest foreign recruit, but there was no denying the man was a powerful warrior and a skilled general.

The war was looking better than it had in years.

The second tent was almost up when a voice at his elbow said, hesitantly:

“Sir?”

A young one, the man who addressed him. Torak of Windhelm, barely more than a boy. He'd joined The Cause, for Talos and for Ulfric, but he was more healer than soldier. Markarth had been his first battle. Galmar had seen him being sick afterward, and had pretended not to see. He still remembered his own first kill.

“What is it, lad?”

“I think the prisoner is ill.”

Galmar frowned.

“I think he has frostbite,” Torak expanded.

 _Serves the_ _bastard_ _right._

Torak shifted.

“Dismissed, lad.”

“Yes, sir.”

Galmar waited until the tents were pitched and properly weighted against the wind. Waited until the lots were drawn and the sentries posted, and rest of the men were filling their bellies with food and the air with song. Then he made his way leisurely over to the elf's cage.

The elf was shivering, teeth chattering, mouth blue around the gag.

“Enjoying the weather, elf?” he said.

That got him something. A curse, likely, going by the poison in the exhausted eyes.

He wouldn't look so proud, Galmar thought, with a sword poking through his back.

But, he reminded himself firmly, Ulfric did not want this one dead. Yet.

There was a certain mission involving ice-wraiths that new recruits were sometimes assigned. He still had the extract from one of the latest ice-wraith kills. Even the thought of wasting it on someone as unworthy as the elf in front of him pained him, but this blizzard wouldn't be letting up any time soon and he'd be damned if he had to look Ulfric in the eye and say he'd let his personal feelings interfere with a mission _again_.

“Unlock the cage,” he commanded.

The guard-- Asger, it seemed, had drawn the short straw today-- obeyed.

“Weak as a milk drinker, isn't he?” Asger said as he turned the key, with a nod towards the prisoner. “I'd have thought even a child could have endured this much.”

Bravely spoken, but Galmar could see that the Nord was shivering himself.

Well, Skyrim's worst weather could that to the best of them.

“You're off-duty until I'm done with him, lad,” Galmar says, “Get yourself a mead.”

“Are you sure? After what he did to Valhd...”

“Get a mead,” Galmar said, more firmly. “I'm no child, to be thrown off-guard by one of the pointy-ears.” He patted his battle-axe firmly. “If he tries anything, I'll make him wish that I was allowed to kill him. But he won't.”

“… Talos be with you then, sir,” Asger said, and departed.

Galmar stepped into the cage. The elf stiffened. He'd been bound awkwardly to begin with, for the cage was not tall enough even for Galmar to stand at full height. At some point, it seemed the weaklings legs had given out beneath him, and only the chains about his waist and wrists that bound him to the bars were keeping him upright. Going by the bloody lines across his waist, the jolting of the carriage had been about as kind to him as he deserved. His gauntlets seemed to have spared his wrists from the same fate, but Galmar would stake a drink on it that the freezing metal was a hell all on it's own.

“I'm going to ungag you, elf. Spit even _one_ more word out about the Thalmor and your false beliefs and the gag will be staying between your teeth until we make Windhelm.”

With that, he poured just enough mead on the gag to melt the frost on it, and ripped it free of the Thalmor's mouth. The elf hissed as the liquid hit his face, as though burnt. Maybe Torak was right. Well, the ice-wraith essence and a mouthful of mead ought to warm the worst of the frostbite out, if he'd take it. Healing could wait until Windhelm if it was needed. Healers weren't scarce in the capital. He'd not waste precious potions of healing out here unless he had to.

The elf's lips worked, cracked and blue and numb, but nothing came out.

Talos be praised for small mercies.

He pulled out the bottle. The elf's eyes narrowed, tracking it.

Recognition flared in the green eyes, followed by icy disbelief.

“To be clear, elf, if I had my way, you'd be dead. But I don't. So thank whatever god it is you serve that Ulfric Stormcloak is the true king, and not me. Drink this. Now.”

“I...” the elf managed to rasp through chattering teeth, “W-would die ten th-thousand deaths... b-before I _lowered_ my s-self to accepting the… the mercy of a _human_ to l-live. I am a m-member of the Th--”

Galmar skipped diplomacy. Instead, he gripped the elf's chin, mercilessly hard against the immediate attempt to twist free, tilted his chin up, and upended the bottle, closing the elf's mouth with one hand and pinching his nose shut with the other.

The elf's blood began beating desperately under his fingers after the first minute without air.

Galmar did not relent.

“Swallow, elf. If you faint, know that I will be force-feeding you this anyway. And,” he ran his eyes along the stupidly impractical robe the elf wore instead of armor, now sodden and frozen against him, “I'll be changing you into something warmer, so the frostbite doesn't carry you off before Stormcloak justice can.”

The elf made a strangled noise, and then, predictably, began coughing. Stupid bastard.

“Swallow.”

Two minutes. The elf sagged dangerously, blood beating lightning-fast. His throat remained obstinately still. He was… well. In a way, he was almost Nordic in his stubbornness. Galmar dismissed the thought. The Nords of Skyrim and the pointy-ears had nothing in common.

Nothing at all.

Three minutes.

And then, suddenly, the elf's eyes rolled back, as he, predictably, fainted.

“Oh for the love of Talos--” Galmar started.

But apparently, the elf's control did not extend into unconsciousness. His throat worked automatically to swallow the liquid in his mouth. He swallowed the mead, too, and was limp, offering no resistance when, true to his word, Galmar unlocked the chains and set about stripping him and dressing him in some practical, stitched deer-hide garments. Galmar wished he'd knocked the elf out from the start.

The Thalmor was much easier to work with like this.

Still. The elf deserved to feel the cold and misery of his impending doom, no matter how much more difficult that made Galmar's day.

An hour later, the elf announced his return to consciousness with a furious demand that Galmar return his robes, “ _Or by the time I am through with you, even the foulest torments of Oblivion will be as noth--”_

Galmar gagged him.

Twelve hours later, Talos be praised, the blizzard let up.

They made it to Windhelm's gates by nightfall.


	3. Interlude: Into the Dungeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Interlude: Into the Dungeon

If Ondolemar were to be honest, a part of him had been praying for a bandit raid, a dragon attack, a giant...

Even a raid by the Daedra-worshiping Forsworn would not have been unwelcome.

Anything, anything at all, that might have attacked his unwelcome escort, managed somehow to accidentally shatter his chains, and given him a chance of escaping. But no. Auri-El remained silent, and too soon Windhelm loomed ever larger before him, its battlements gleaming mercilessly red in the light of the setting sun.

Nords lined the streets as they entered the gates, cheering and whispering.

"Praise Talos," the hammer-fisted Nord responsible for dressing him in these repulsive skins shouted, "The Reach is ours!"

"Praise Talos!"

"Praise Talos!"

The cage crawled on. Once, Ondolemar had stood unflinching before the Gates of Oblivion in Alinor, one among many Thalmor agents, fighting wave after wave of the unending Daedra hoards while those mages who specialised in the school of Illusion infiltrated the evil fortresses and closed them. Alone, aching and frozen though he was, he refused to flinch now.

"Who is he?" someone whispered, as the cage moved past, "Some Thalmor bastard?"

"One of them Altmer thieves, more likely. Heard they even steal from graves and the dead. Who cares? Praise Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King! Praise be to Talos!"

A thief. A _thief?_

Not only a thief, but a defiler of the resting places of the dead?

Outrage burned inside him, choking him. Had he not been gagged--

But he was. He would not forget their faces, though. If he lived, they'd go down on the growing list of faces Ondolemar intended to find a name for, and have hunted down and sent off to Northwatch Keep in chains.

His legs refused to hold him when at last the humiliating procession reached the barracks. The ice-wraith essence had long since worn off, and breathing hurt. Perhaps they knew that, because two of the Nords gripped his arms when they unchained him and dragged him to the prisons instead of making him walk. A small mercy, and not one he'd expected. They must have been in more of a hurry to see their beloved Ulfric than he'd thought.

There were no other prisoners in the cell they dumped him in.

That he was in a cell and not strapped to the rack he could see opposite to him outside was no comfort.

He would be on it soon. Of that he was certain.

They had not taken the hideous _things_ off his numbed hands, and nor had they ungagged him, but he could at least move in this cell. His stomach still churned restlessly from the jolting carriage, and from something deeper that made him feel curiously hot and cold and shaky at the same time. It was probably the first symptoms of Rockjoint caught from these mouldering skins.

There was a pile of straw in the corner which looked like it was meant to be slept on.

Ondolemar ignored it.

Instead, he slowly, painfully, propped himself up onto his knees-- the natural position of supplication-- closed his eyes, and prayed that Auri-El would find the time between whatever Divine matters he was attending to at the moment to remember that one of his more deserving children was in need of some divine intervention. Or, failing more spectacular aid, a fire.


	4. Meeting Ulfric Stormcloak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Meeting Ulfric Stormcloak

“Are you praying for mercy already, elf?”

The voice-- deep, powerful and unmistakable, at least by those who'd previously had the misfortune of hearing him, for anyone __except__ Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak-- jolted Ondolemar from the half-sleep, half-stupor he seemed, unaccountably, to have fallen into. An unforgivable lapse. He was slipping. He blamed the wretched cold.

“Ah. The gag.”

He forced his eyes open, and glared at his captor.

A tall man and powerfully built, the renegade leader of the Stormcloak Rebellion. There'd been a file on him at the Embassy, but then, there'd been so many files. He'd grasped the essentials when he'd been assigned to this rock six years go-- That Ulfric and the Empire being at war was good for the Thalmor, and so he wasn't yet allowed to arrest open supporters of Ulfric and Talos like the Silver-Bloods, at least while the stalemate lasted-- but he wished, fleetingly, that he'd taken the time to read the file properly. Something in Ulfric's eyes suggested that for him, this was personal.

But then, perhaps that should not have surprised him. Faith was a strange thing. Perhaps the man was simply just as attached to his false-god as the dark elves were now to their Daedra and had been to their Almsivi.

“You do not seem to be in good shape, elf,” Ulfric remarked.

Ondolemar put a bit more venom into his glare, in case the Jarl wasn't getting the hint.

“Galmar tells me you almost died on the way here, like a fool.”

Ondolemar tried his best to incinerate the Jarl through mental power alone.

“So I am,” the Jarl said, sitting down on a stool his guards seemed to have put outside the cell, “Going to assume that threatening to beat you to death if you refuse will not make you more likely to tell me the meaning of these.”

A sheaf of papers was thrust before him. A shuffled mess, but they were, unmistakably, his coded reports from Markarth. His first instinctive emotion was disbelief. He hadn't made __that__ many errors on page 47, had he?

His second was resentment. _This_ was Auri-El's idea of fairness? That even riddled with disease, covered in bruises and stuck in a cold Nordic prison waiting to die, he __still__ could not escape this paperwork? He and Auri-El would have _words_ when he was dead.

“I see you recognise them,” Ulfric said. “You are going to translate them for me.”

Ondolemar scowled as best he could.

“You do not believe me.”

_I do not._

“You do not think you will break.”

_I will not. Auri-El is with me._

“You are wrong, Ondolemar of Markarth. Every man breaks, eventually.”

Jarring, to have his name pronounced aloud, even if it should have been "Of Alinor," instead. He'd not been sure the Nords even knew it. There was meaning, though, in the words. A dark, unshakable __conviction__. Was that the cause then, of this one-sided conversation with a man who should, by rights, have been delegating things like this to a professional torturer while he focused on the war? That at some point in the past, the Jarl had been captured and broken by a Thalmor, and now intended to repay the favor? For now, Ondolemar would assume so. Would assume--

“Galmar tells me you have not eaten for close on three days now.”

His stomach rumbled at the mention of food.

He clenched his teeth, willing the treacherous organ to be silent.

Ulfric stood, and Ondolemar tracked the movement, glaring.

There was a rustle, a clanking of keys in the lock, and then the door was open and Jarl was in front of him, removing his gag. He was so close. So fearlessly close. The vile restraints on his hands would double for crude clubs. If he were not so damnably sluggish… if Ulfric had not possessed his Voice… if his implicit orders had _not_ been to make sure the war lasted as long as possible…

That didn't stop him _wishing_ he could crush the man's skill like an egg, though.

“When I am free,” he promised, the moment he could speak, “I will make you _regret_ this. I will put so many ice-spikes into you that even _you_ will shake from your incessant, accursed cold. I will--”

"You will depart in a coffin if you depart at all, elf," Ulfric cut him off, ungently.

"So you say. Do you think our influence does _not_ extend here?"

Something flickered in the Jarl's stern gaze, and Ondolemar smiled, then, cruelly elegant; an expression borrowed straight from Elenwen.

Then:

“Food will be brought to you in the morning,” Ulfric said, suddenly abrupt, “Which, given how many of my own suffer in this winter, is more than you deserve. Do not waste it.”

“Oh? And how, exactly, do you intend that I _not_ waste it with these--” Ondolemar held his hands up, sneering, “ _things_ ensuring that I am incapable of holding either plate, cup or spoon? Do you think I will lap up _slop_ like a _dog_?”

“I wonder how many days it would take for you to do just that?”

Furious, Ondolemar attempted to stand.

A bad move, in hindsight, firstly, because he'd forgotten his legs had gone numb, and secondly because Ulfric took it, or seemed to, as an attempted assault. At least the Nord's lightning-fast response-- one huge hand about his slender throat, choking him-- was holding him upright and preventing him from falling flat on his face, even if his legs had pins and needles and he couldn't breathe. Auri-El be praised for small mercies, he supposed.

“Do not mistake my restraint for mercy, or for weakness,” Ulfric growled.

Ondolemar attempted to wheeze out a suitably inflammatory reply, and failed as the grip about his throat tightened.

“I could end your life so easily…”

Ondolemar coughed, gagging. He was no expert, but he did not think, judging by the distance in the human's eyes, that Jarl Ulfric was completely _there_ in this cell as he strangled the hapless Thalmor. He'd heard of it happening to prisoners, sometimes. He himself loathed the smell of brimstone, and hated the sound of shattering glass. Was it the accent of one Alinor-bred that had triggered the Jarl?

Auri-El damn whatever wretch of an inquisitor had left him with this mess to Oblivion.

They'd _clearly_ not done a good enough job.


	5. The Many Thoughts Of Ulfric Stormcloak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Many Thoughts Of Ulfric Stormcloak

Ulfric Stormcloak was not a man much given to torturing others.

There were times it was needed, true. Too often in the web of secrets spun by spies, assassins and thieves, the lives of his people were snared. Broken men talked, and broken or not, he needed their secrets. But he did not like it. For that reason, he oversaw most torture sessions personally. In doing so, he denied himself the possibility of distancing himself from what he had ordered. Of distancing himself from the _responsibility_ of the vile act. Thus did he remind himself that each time he ordered another sentient being to be broken, he left a stain upon his soul only death, and Talos, could erase.

It had been two days since he'd lost control in the Thalmor's cell.

He still did not know the cause of it. Not fully. It had been years since he'd remembered… everything… so vividly.

“You should really...” the elf had managed haughtily, _fearlessly,_ from the floor, his accent as a knife against Ulfric's ears, “Consider delegating this to a professional interrogator. Assuming you even _have_ one.”

The Thalmor was lucky he'd not been strangled to death. Ulfric was still not sure if he was sorry or not that the elf was still alive.

“You will need to do something about Hjaalmarch soon, Ulfric,” Galmar was saying now, drawing Ulfric away from his brooding and back to more pressing matters. “Einar sent us word. He'll not helping us like he did with Whiterun and Markarth. Not for a while.”

Ulfric frowned.

Einar was a good man and was, more importantly to the outcome of this war, the best swordsman Ulfric had ever met. He was a Nord to whom Ulfric could feel safe entrusting a battle, and Ulfric considered him a friend.

Einar would not have abandoned the cause lightly, if at all.

“He is not wounded?”

“Talos forbid. That one would fight even if he was. It's the Greybeards.” If there was an unspoken _Talos curse them_ attached to the end of that, Ulfric would let it pass. “He said a while ago, they summoned him to High Hrothgar. He decided to go.”

Ulfric's frown deepened.

“You have the letter?”

“Aye. Give me a moment--,” Galmar fished about in a few pockets and pouches before at last producing a crumpled sheet of paper. “Here it is.”

Ulfric took it. The words were blotched a little, likely from snow or sweat, but still decipherable. It was to be expected. Einar had always had a quick eye and a steady hand.

Ulfric ran his eyes down the page.

_Galmar,_

_Tell Jarl Ulfric I will be unable to report to duty for an unknown period. I have been summoned by the Greybeards to High Hrothgar._

_Truthfully, I was summoned weeks ago. They believe I am the Dragonborn._

_I have read enough to know that this may well be true. However, I had hoped the Dragonborn prophesies already fulfilled, and that dragons would disperse on their own, without my intervention. They have not, and at the rate their attacks are increasing, in a decade or two there won't be anyone left in Skyrim to rule regardless of who wins this war. My duty is clear to me, as I hope it is to you._

_Talos be with you. I hope to report to you again,_

_Einar._

“He must not have had much faith in me,” Ulfric said at last, folding the sheet in half and returning it, “If he sent this to you instead of asking my leave in person.”

“Would you have given it?” Galmar asked, pocketing it again.

There was a knowing look in Galmar's eyes, born of the familiarity of a sword-brother who had stood beside him in more battles than either of them could count.

Ulfric considered the matter. Would he have?

Perhaps not. Ulfric was no scholar. He knew nothing of prophesy. The dragons were a threat that needed to be countered, and soon, yes, but on the other hand, each day the Empire stayed was another day that one of Talos' own was marched to Northwatch Keep, to face torments that no man could, or should, endure. 

Perhaps the Dragonborn-- if he was the Dragonborn-- had been wise to leave covertly.

He could respect it, but that did not mean Ulfric had to like it.

“Speaking of which,” Galmar frowned, “There's talk in the ranks about the dragons. So far, the lizards have missed us if we've stayed still, thank Talos, but they're not always easy to spot. We've lost more than one patrol to them, especially in the mountain paths. And if we're marching prisoners, more often than not the fools try to run when we freeze and get themselves roasted.”

"Poor devils," Ulfric said.

He remembered Helgen. He could well imagine their terror.

“Our spies say the Imperial bastards are having the same problem,” Galmar added.

“That is something, then.”

“Damn lizards. Anyone would think they wanted this stalemate to last.”

“I think you overestimate them, Galmar. Likely, they seek only to destroy all of us, as the tales say they once did in the past.”

Galmar grunted, dissatisfied.

Perhaps he had reason to be. It was not, after all, so very impossible.

They'd returned in the same hour that he was to have been beheaded and the civil war ended for good. Miraculous timing indeed.

Who had benefited from that? Not the Empire. They'd only lost that day.

Einar, but if he was truly the Dragonborn, why would the dragons save one destined to destroy them?

Himself, in that he lived? 

But the dragons slaughtered both sides now.

The Thalmor, however…

Elenwen had been there that day.

From memory, she had been less than pleased with Tullius's plans to execute them.

She had also emerged from Helgen wholly unscathed.

Ulfric Stormcloak's brow clouded, well… stormily.

Everyone knew the Thalmor had gained Elsweyr by claiming to have brought the cats' missing moons back with their accursed magicks. Talos only knew if it was true if they had that sort of power, but if the dragons were working with an agenda…

“Since you are in contact with Einar--,” Ulfric said, at last.

“I'd say more that he was in contact with me.”

“Hire a courier, then,” Ulfric advised. “They seem to have a way of finding even bandits, when needed. Whatever it takes, send word to him that he has my permission for his leave of absence-- though in the future I would ask that he do me the courtesy of requesting them. And tell him that until he sends me word on whether he believes it's possible to put an end to the dragon attacks, I will not be sending my soldiers in numbers to take the Empire's holdings. I have been patient for twenty years. I can wait a few more weeks, or months, if that will preserve more of the lives of my men.”

“And if he sends word it's nothing more than hot air and empty dreams?”

“We bring plenty of arrows, and we march,” Ulfric said, simply.

Galmar made an approving noise, and began writing.

Ulfric returned to pondering Skyrim's plight.

If the Greybeards truly did know nothing about how to end the dragon threat-- and being the pacifists they were, they likely did not-- he'd need to consider other alternatives.

Like confirming whether or not the dragons had anything to do with the Thalmor at all.

Because if they did...

If they did, then perhaps there was more he needed from Ondolemar of Markarth than the key to his coded paperwork and the satisfaction of watching a Thalmor head roll off his shoulders at the business end of the executioner's ax.

Perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Pointless Trivia:_  
>  Einar: One who fights alone.


	6. Ondolomar's Persistent (And Irritating) Visitor(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> (Days 1-2 take place concurrently with Chapter 5, directly following Chapter 4.)

## Ondolomar's Persistent (And Irritating) Visitor(s)

**Day One- Evening**

“Why is your skin yellow?”

“My da says the only good Thalmor is a dead one. Are you a Thalmor?”

“Are you hungry? I'd be hungry if I hadn't eaten for two days.”

“Why are you bald?”

“Do you cut out human hearts like the Foresworn do?”

**Day Two- Midnight**

“Why don't you have any hair on your head?”

Ondolemar closed his eyes, and counted to ten. Slowly.

“I thought all high-elves had head hair. Ulundil has hair.”

Ondolemar upped the count to twenty. This was the second time in as many days that this guard-- if he could be called that; the boy could not have had more than twenty summers to his name-- had visited. Ondolemar did not know the boy's name. He'd not asked, and had the boy possessed a brain, he'd not have been foolish enough to share it even if the Justiciar had. After all, when he was free, he'd be ensuring that all these Nords were abducted and tortured to death.

He dwelt on the thought fondly for a moment.

“Ma shaved my head a year back, when I caught lice,” the guard persisted, oblivious to these murderous thoughts, “She said I'd caught it patrolling the Grey Quarter. Did you have lice?”

Ondolemar's eyes flashed.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of,” the guard said, and if Ondolemar hadn't known better, he'd have said it was an attempt at reassurance. “Talos isn't the sort of god who minds head lice, ma said. I'm sure your god doesn't mind either.”

Reassurance from a Nord, and a Talos-worshiping Nord at that. Clearly, he'd hit rock bottom.

He should have kept ignoring his too-curious visitor. But two days of steeling himself against a torture session that never seemed to come had taken their toll, and the brat had made it clear that icy silence wasn't deterring him. And so, bored, tired and irritable, Ondolemar finally lowered himself enough to reply to this young follower of the false-god.

“Talos may not have standards,” he said, haughtily, “But I can assure you that Auri-El does. He does not allow his own to be infested with blood-sucking parasites. Thus, I was not, and have never been, infested by anything as vulgar as _l_ _ice_.”

A variety of emotions crossed the Nord's face. Delight. Anticipation. Fervor.

Ondolemar did not know why they were there. Nor did he care.

“So... why are you bald?”

"Does it matter?"

"I just thought it was interesting."

Ondolemar pressed his lips into a bloodless line.

“Did you drink a wrong potion?” the Nord persisted.

“I am bald,” Ondolemar said, meeting the boy's earnest gaze and injecting as much poison as he could into his own, “Because I have lost one hair for every Nord I have killed. It is Auri-El's gift to us, that for every heathen we destroy, we lose one hair. When one of us loses their hair completely, he or she ascends to the heavens as a saint. That is the real reason the Thalmor came to Skyrim.”

“I don't believe you,” the Nord said, deeply skeptical.

Ondolemar arched an eyebrow.

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because you're bald and you're not in the heavens. I don't think beards count. Besides, there'd be more bald high-elves if that were true. Or partly bald.”

“Clever child.”

The Nord flushed, hands clenching.

“I'm not a child. I'm close on sixteen winters, now.”

“And I am close on five centuries,” Ondolemar retorted, crushingly.

“… No wonder you're going bald,” the guard muttered.

Ondolemar hoped Auri-El would do him a favor and incinerate the brat. Auri-El didn't.

“I am not, 'going bald.' I shave.”

“I thought you said you didn't have lice.”

Ondolemar groaned and flopped his head back against the wall behind him, shutting his eyes once more. How little training did Ulfric provide these children with, anyway? It was clear the boy was no baby-faced interrogator. Unless he'd had grossly misjudged him, the boy was taking advantage of the fact that the barracks were upstairs, and was--likely without his commander's knowledge--slipping down here here for curiosity and bragging rights alone.

It was unacceptable.

He should not have had the freedom to slip down and annoy Ondolemar.

There should, even among the renegades, have been _standards._ Even in the early days, Thalmor agents had not been assigned missions like guarding an enemy unless their superiors were sure that they had enough training to curb weaknesses like empathy and pity.

“… Are you sick?”

Ondolemar cracked an eye open to glower properly up at the guard.

“You looked better yesterday. You're sort of a pale yellow now, instead of… more yellow.”

“I believe 'golden' is the hue you are searching for, brat,” Ondolemar said, haughtily, “And, yes, I am. I have Rockjoint, or something that _feels_ like it, and on top of that I am starving. I have not eaten more than your vile mead for close on five days, and until these,” he lifted his hands for emphasis, “are gone, I will continue not being able to eat, because even if it did not smell like rotten potato, I refuse on principle to lap up lumpy sludge like a beast.”

The boy actually looked sorry, damn him.

He eyed the bowl of… _something_ … that had been left at breakfast, and made a face.

“Quite,” Ondolemar agreed.

“… I could lift the bowl up for you, if you wanted.”

"You do remember that your father-- an eminently sensible Nord, by the sound of him-- told you that the only good Thalmor was a dead one. I trust you do not intend to dishonor him by attempting to help one.”

The boy chewed his lip.

"He's a Breton, actually."

"Does that alter the truth of his teachings?"

A soft sigh.

"You're… definitely a Thalmor?”

“I am definitely a Thalmor.”

The boy digested that.

“So why don't you stop trying to help someone who'd just as soon see you and your parents' heads cleaved from your bodies and attached to spikes, and leave me?”

Slowly, with more reluctance than any sane worshiper of Talos should have shown, the boy did.

**Day Three- Morning**

A healer visited him with breakfast-- if it deserved that title-- to cure the disease, "to stop it spreading to the guards."

A pity. If Ondolemar had thought of that plan first, he'd have made sure he'd touched the brat he suspected was responsible for this cure earlier and oozed his germs all over him to sabotage the security here.

**Day Three- Midday**

With lunch--a husk of stale bread which Ondolemar loftily ignored-- came Ulfric Stormcloak and three bottles of Nord mead.

Ondolemar, still steeling himself for torture, eyed the Jarl at a temporary loss. That Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak would drink with a Thalmor he'd nearly strangled was a thought too ludicrous to contemplate.

Ulfric uncorked the first bottle and set it down in front of him.

Ondolemar eyed it blankly.

"Since you seem unmoved by the fear of death or pain, I intend," Ulfric explained, "To see what alcohol will do to loosen your tongue."

Ondolemar stiffened.

"If you think I will swallow that _swill,_ you are greatly mistaken."

"If you think I am granting you a choice in this, elf, _you_ are greatly mistaken. The only choice you have lies in whether you swallow it willingly, or if I must force it down your throat."

Ondolemar considered his options.

"Remove these gauntlets so I can hold the bottle, and I will."

"I am very sure you will manage to lift the bottle somehow without my enabling you to electrocute me."

"Oh are you? Because I..." a deliberate, smooth motion, and then the Nord mead bottle was less a bottle than a collection of mead-soaked shards, "I, Ulfric, have found these to be  _incredibly_ clumsy."

Ulfric's eyes flashed.

"Force it is."

It was, in the end, not a very epic fight he managed to put up against Ulfric Stormcloak. This time, there were guards there to immobilize his struggling form while Ulfric forced the vile swill into his mouth and while he would have  _liked_ to have allowed lack of air to render him unconscious once more when his head was tilted up and his nose was pinched shut, Ulfric had a knack of stopping just shy of that point and allowing him to suck in air through his nose once more. Never as much as he needed but just _enough_ until, half-retching, his throat swallowed without his consent and the cycle began again.

After the third bottle, he no longer felt the cold.

After the fifth, the prison began to feel... not so bad.

"For the love of Talos, how many bottles does it take to get _one elf_ drunk?" Ulfric muttered.

A pleasant buzz threatened to enveloped him.

Ondolemar clung to his tottering senses, and reminded himself that Thalmor did not spill secrets under the influence of Nord mead. At the very  _least_ they did it under the influence of Colovian Brandy.

"What do you know of the dragons?" Ulfric demanded, after the sixth.

Ondolemar did his best to sneer.

"Go... t-to... Oblivion."

After the tenth, the world began, curiously, to sway unsteadily. And yet, despite that, it positively shone. He  _liked_ Auri-El. He liked Ulfric. He liked Elenwen. He liked that brat, too, who'd visited him and he liked his parents. Had there been a time when he hadn't? Well, if so, he couldn't remember why. He tried his best to tell them so. They seemed unfortunately unhappy and not sharing his enlightened view of the plane of Mundus at large. They needed assistance. He would give it.

"You should try Colo... colov... _brandy._ It'th nicer, you know. It's very nice," Ondolemar informed him.

"Dragons, elf," Ulfric gritted out.

"Dragonth. Very big... they don' have brandy, though. Not th' good thort."

Ondolemar went to drape a familiar arm around his friend's shoulders, only to have them pulled roughly behind him. Oh well. Odder things happened, sometimes.

"Elenwen hath th' good one. Doethn't share it, though. Harpy."

"Aye, that she is," Ulfric agreed, and Ondolemar rewarded him with an approving smile.

"Dragons, though, elf. Where did they come from?"

"Th' ground. The black one thays things, you know. And then, pop," Ondolemar snapped his now-free arms together with a satisfying clunk. "Up they get. Thaw it once."

"What black one? What do you mean, "pop," elf?

"Pop. Like..." Ondolemar searched vainly, before producing, "Pop."

"Oh for Talos's sake--!"

"Y' thouldn't... Not Taloth...," Ondolemar informed him seriously, eyes dark, and this time he did manage to land a hand on his friend's shoulder. It went rigid. That made him sad, "They take you to... to places when y' say Taloth. Had a friend once. Said th' Daedra got him, but I know better. They take you if you say Taloth." 

"Alright, elf, for the next ten minutes I won't say Talos."

Ondolemar was transported with joy.

"Now what do you mean, they come from the ground? Who controls them? Is it Elenwen?"

"Th' ground," Ondolemar said, pointing to the floor, "You see? The thpot you walk on."

"I _know_ what the _ground_ is."

"Then why'd y' ask?" Ondolomar frowned, genuinely puzzled.

"Oh, for-- who controls them, elf? Is it Elenwen? Is it your king?"

"Controlth what?"

"The dragons."

"Oh. No," Ondolemar said, glad to oblige a friend, "They're invester... int... looking into that. 's why I thaw them popping out of the ground."

He felt like dancing. He felt like singing.

And so he did. In high-Altmer, a language only spoken in the heart of Alinor, he sung a song passed down by his ancestors praising the timeless splendor of Auri-El. He danced the steps of the Ten Thousand Spires, until abruptly his spinning was brought to an end. They meant well. Likely, they sought to hold him steady against the earth, which was tilting like a rudderless ship caught in a stormy sea. They did not understand that the spinning helped.

 _Elf..._ he thought he heard, somewhere in the distance,  _Elf..._

And then the ground was tilting up to meet him, and he remembered no more.

**Day Three- Evening**

“Do you ever summon Daedra?”

Ondolemar, nursing a splitting headache and half an hour of humiliating memories, did not bother opening his eyes.

“Why, exactly, have you returned?”

“I was bored. Nothing's happening these days. There's not even a good bandit raid.”

“Give it time,” Ondolemar said, with false sympathy. “I am sure that, given a week or so strengthen his grip on his new holdings, your beloved Ulfric will continue marching on the Empire. You should see action soon enough.”

“You really think so?”

“Am I obligated to care?”

Silence. Then:

“Do you know what a Dragonborn is?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” the brat said glumly.

Another silence.

“Da says it's cowardly to kill yourself.”

“Then perhaps you should reconsider visiting me.”

A deep sigh.

“Do you want to die?”

"Is that a threat I hear, child?"

"I'm not a-- Never mind. No, I didn't mean it like that. Just... it was a question. Do you?"

“No,” Ondolemar snapped, "Of course not."

“You should eat then.”

A child's logic, fittingly coming from a child.

Repellent brat. Just why did he even care?

“If I put some regular manacles on your hands instead of those ones, would you eat?”

"Obviously. At least when I felt less like throwing up. I would also incinerate you."

"Oh," the boy said, audibly deflating. "Well, at least you're honest, I guess. But what if I asked you to swear on... um... on Auri-El," the boy said, pronunciation atrocious, "that you'd just take them off long enough to eat this soup I stole from the kitchens and then you'd let me put them back on without incinerating anything? I don't have spoons, mind, but it's thin enough to drink and it tastes good. I checked. No rotten potatoes at all."

The boy held up a pot as he spoke, and nauseous though he was, the smell... was revolting, naturally, Ondolemar reminded himself, as anything cooked by a Nord inevitably was. Which was why his breath was even and controlled, not catching at all, and any instinctive straightening and staring was due only to appalled shock at the boy's stupidity.

“Would you?” the Nord said, again.

“You would not be such a fool.”

“I would. I serve Talos but I serve Stendarr too. I don't think he'd be happy with me if I sat and watched an enemy starve himself to death, even if he was a Thalmor, just because I wanted to properly humiliate him.”

Stendarr. Lord of Compassion and Justice. How quaint.

“What is your name?” Ondolemar asked, abruptly.

“Elof.”

There was that fervor again.

Stupid, blind, idiotic child.

Not merely curious, no. Not looking to boast to have seen the monster up close.

No, the boy was a clear romantic, in love with-- with what? The idea that his own shining example could influence and redeem his enemies?

His conceit was unrivaled.

Worse, it was _insulting_.

It would be so easy to use him. He _deserved_ to be used.

To be humiliated, as Ondolemar had been mere hours ago. No guards were stationed in here because with the barracks upstairs none were needed. Once the door was unlocked, once he could cast… All it would take was one lightning bolt to the chest-- an action that would not even require breaking his 'no incineration' oath to Auri-El-- and he could don the boy's armor. Nords weren't bright. Auri-El willing, by the time they realised what had happened, he'd be past Windhelm's gates. Free.

Ondolemar watched the idea spin before him, mesmerized.

Then he turned, addressing the far wall of his cell.

“I will say this but once more. I am your enemy, child, not your friend. If you freed me, you would bask in the glory of your mercy for all of two seconds before I killed you. Your compassion is… nauseatingly touching… I will allow, but it would not save you. Nor would your youth. So leave now, and save your mercy for one more likely to reward you for it than I.” After a slight pause, he added, grudgingly, "You may leave the soup here. Since it is drinkable, I am sure I will be able to lift the pot and force it down somehow. Even with these."

He did not look at Elof.

"Right. Make sure you do eat it. I'll be back with more if you don't."

There was a soft clatter near the cell door, and followed by the sound of soft footsteps retreating up the stairs.

It was not mercy that had made him decline that chance to run. It was not compassion. It was _certainly_ not because Elof had brought him edible food.

It was just his very, _very_ bad headache, which made this not an ideal time to try sprinting.

Ondolemar considered his defense objectively.

Auri-El preserve him if Elenwen ever caught wind of this. Though truthfully, Ondolemar wasn't certain even Auri-El would be enough.


	7. The Boy Who Cried Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Boy Who Cried Dragon

Ulfric had intended to visit the Thalmor again the next day.

While it seemed his prisoner knew nothing useful about the dragon attacks, there were plenty of other questions to ask the stubborn elf. The exact location of Northwatch Keep. Secret entrances to it, and to the Thalmor Embassy. The key to the frustrating cypher that so far Wuunferth the Unliving had proved unable to break...

With morning, however, came word that a dragon was attacking Kynesgrove.

“And it's big and it's teeth are huger than my  _whole body_ and it is roasting my pa's inn to the ground,” said the lad who'd delivered the message; Kjeld's boy, if Ulfric recalled correctly. “My pa… my pa-- and ma, too. Please, you have to save them.”

The elf was forgotten.

Within the hour, Ulfric had sounded the horn, gathered the men and ridden to Kynesgrove.

Unfortunately, when they arrived, spirits high and fully prepared to answer Sovngarde's call if it would save their own, it turned out that, “roasting it to the ground,” could be more accurately translated as, “It flew overhead twice, before heading over the mountains an hour ago,” and that, “you have to save them,” had been Kjeld the Younger's extremely loose interpretation of, “See if the Jarl has any men to spare to reinforce us in case it comes back.”

“He's a young lad,” Kjeld coughed, “He's a bit lacking in sense, sometimes.”

A short pause.

“You don't say?” Galmar muttered darkly. “Right waste of a--”

“Galmar,” Ulfric said.

He'd been fifteen himself once.

Kjeld shot him a grateful look, and his son one that promised a stern talking to later.

Kjeld the Younger met it mutinously and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like: _“I don't see what the fuss is about,_ _pa_ _. It's not like he actually does anything except sit around on his throne all day anyway_ _and--”_

“Inn. Now,” Iddra said, ushering her son away.

“But _ma_...”

A rare handful, that one. Ulfric would have given him a sound thrashing had the boy been his son, but he suspected the boy would receive no such discipline from his parents. Well, to each their own, when it came to raising children. The boy would grow up soon enough, and probably too soon for his parents.

A few minutes later, Iddra returned without her son and with a tray-full of mead, “For the brave sons and daughters soldiers of Skyrim, who would have traded both blood and life for the safety of this town.”

It was a shrewd move. Her words were met by cheers, and it was clear that the sight of mead did much to restore the wavering morale of his men. Only one Nord muttered, "Should we really be drinking if we're expecting to fight a dragon?" but he was quickly shouted down by his more experienced peers.

Ulfric drew Galmar aside.

“See that the men have enough mead to warm them, but not enough to incapacitate them. I am going to have a word with Kjeld.”

“Aye, I will," Galmar nodded.

“Watch the skies.”

“Don't worry," Galmar patted his bow, "The next time the lizard comes back, it'll taste Nordic steel.”

Ulfric clapped him on the shoulder and made his way over to Kjeld.

“Speak honestly, my friend," he said, lowering his voice, "How bad is your situation here?”

“Not so bad that you needed to risk yourself by coming here personally," Kjeld said, frowning, "But, between us, bad enough. The dragon's gone now, but this is the second time we've seen it. It wouldn't bother me if it would just take a cow or something, but it's the same pass overhead each time, like it's looking for something and not finding it. Like it's waiting for something. Or someone.”

To the side, Hurri, an affable drunk and one of the stronger singers among the soldiers here, struck up an enthusiastic rendition of, “The Age of Oppression.” Ulfric resolutely did not think of a different affable drunk singing a different song, achingly beautiful, of which the only intelligible word was _Auri-El_.

“Someone?” Ulfric echoed.

“They say the Dragonborn was summoned to High Hrothgar,” Kjeld clarified, meaningfully.

“You think the dragon is setting a trap for him?”

There was another enthusiastic round of cheering. Iddra had brought food to accompany the mead.

“I don't know. These are dark times. I'm used to my enemies being on the ground, where I can plant a greatsword through them, but this… I keep telling people to head for shelter if an attack comes, and leave the fighting to those of us who can fight. But hiding has never sat well with any true Nord and even the minorities want to protect their homes.”

Ulfric's heart went out to his fellow Nord.

The comfort of knowing the souls of the dead would feast for eternity in Sovngarde would not stop the fields from turning fallow, nor enable the mine to operate itself.

“We will remain here with you until nightfall. I cannot leave my duties in Windhelm unattended longer than that. Talos-willing, we will have slain the beast by then, but if not, I will make sure that the guard here is doubled and the roads regularly patrolled.”

There was little more to say.

Kjeld clapped him on the shoulder. Ulfric did the same.

Both of them knew Kynesgrove was not the only town that faced this danger.

Both of them knew resources were stretched thin with the war already.

It was, both objectively and subjectively, a wasted trip and a waste of a day. Though the dragon passed once more overhead-- The same one from Helgen, or did it just look the same? Were all dragons black, or just this one? He'd have to check-- it kept out of range and ignored them.

“Cowardly lizard,” Galmar muttered.

Ulfric heartily agreed.

“The next time someone says they are being attacked by dragons," Galmar said, once they were back in Windhelm inside Ulfric's personal quarters, thawing out the lingering chill of the freezing walk home in the dark from their bodies, "I say we consign personal glory to Oblivion and send in a regular patrol first to check.”

“...Agreed.”


	8. Caught

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Caught

“It's not fair.”

Ondolemar feigned sleep. He did not know what time it was, but he was very sure that it was too early to be dealing with Nordic romanticists.

“The one time I _finally_ get to go with Jarl Ulfric to help fight off a dragon, and it turns out the story is one great big heap of horse dung!”

 There was an ominous rustle, which he devoutly prayed was _not_ the sound of Elof sitting down and making himself comfortable outside his cell.

“I would have proved myself, too. I can swing a sword. Ma said I was a _born_ swordsman.”

One soup. He'd accepted _one_ pot of wretched soup, after making it _clear_ they were enemies, and _still_ Elof thought him an appropriate mer to complain to? He'd thought, when the boy had not returned all day yesterday, that he'd gotten the hint. Clearly, he'd been wrong. Clearly, he'd made an error, and that error had been his assumption that the boy possessed _logic._  Did Elof do this to every prisoner? If so, how had the boy even _survived_ a year of duty?

Ondolemar abandoned his pretense of sleep-- clearly a failing stratagem-- and wished he had a finger free to massage his throbbing temple.

“It did not occur to you that swords might not be of a great deal of use against a flying reptile?”

“Wait, they don't land ever?” Elof said, dismayed.

“Not until they've finished breathing fire at you. If you live through that, then yes, they land. They then proceed to swallow you, unless you have the good sense to make sure there are plenty of other targets closer to their jaws than you are.”

“...You've fought them before?” Elof said, sounding impressed.

“I am not stupid enough to engage a dragon. The Foresworn were.”

Some of the awe left Elof's eyes.

“Who won?”

“I don't know,” Ondolemar said, dampeningly. “I did not stay long enough to find out.”

Elof looked like he was trying not to say something uncomplimentary.

“I know. Had you been there, you would have joined the battle courageously-- favoring the human, obviously, over the dragon, who would have been defeated by one mighty blow from you. Naturally, the briarheart would then have been so grateful for your timely aid that he would have overlooked the fact that you wore the colors of Ulfric Stormcloak and would have embraced you as a brother instead of plunging his dwarven waraxes through your chest.”

Elof flushed and shot Ondolemar a dark look.

Ondolemar raised an eyebrow.

“No? You'd have sided with the dragon, then?”

“… I don't know. Probably not...” the boy muttered.

“You will perish on your first patrol outside Windhelm's gates,” Ondolemar predicted. “Which would be a shame. Harden your heart, boy. You have a head. You may even have a brain inside it. _Use_ it. _Witness_ the example we Thalmor set, and _learn_ from it.”

“… You mean the torturing helpless prisoners part?”

“Is that sarcasm I detect?”

Elof's eyes widened innocently. Incorrigible brat.

“It's just hard to work out _which_ example of hardheartedness you want me to learn from. There's a lot to choose from. It's nice of you, by the way, to not want me dead. I appreciate it.”

“Bring me more soup this evening, and you will continue being able to appreciate it.”

“I will. You need to give me back the pot though. I think the cook saw me take it that night. He said something this morning about how if my family was struggling this winter, I could feel free to approach him or Jarl Ulfric, which...” Elof's nose wrinkled, “I mean, on the one hand, no one _likes_ to be a beggar. But on the other, if ma and da don't find out, I can get the soup without stealing or getting a thrashing?”

Ondolemar allowed the boy a moment to ponder his alternatives.

“I think I'll go with begging. I'd rather get a thrashing for lying than stealing.”

“An admirable choice.”

“You think?”

“Of course not. Were I you, I would be leaving me to starve. Since, however, you are too--,”

“Soft-hearted? Yeah, you said.”

“You are that too, naturally. But 'lacking in common sense' was the slur I had intended to employ.”

Elof grinned.

Ondolemar's lips thinned, unimpressed.

“Do you actually _like_ being insulted, child?”

“Well, yes and no. My older brother-- Ralhd...” the boy trailed off, shrugging. “The Imperials got him in a raid two months ago. He was two years older than me. You know, just young enough to resent a little brother who wanted to tag along with him, and who slowed him down, but not so old that I physically couldn't try? He used to insult me a lot. Ma said he was trying to toughen me up. So… I mean, I just tuned them out, eventually...”

The boy was sitting stiffly now, staring at a patch of floor near Ondolemar's boot.

Just what, exactly, had he done to deserve this? He was a Thalmor Justiciar, not some substitute for a Nordic boy's dead brother. Especially not a romanticist as hopeless as this one.

“Your brother clearly failed,” Ondolemar said, at last.

“Yeah...”

“I would lend you a shoulder to weep on, if you would unlock my cell. I would even engage to pat your shoulder if you would remove these restraints.”

“I thought,” Elof said, a bit husky but clearly distracted, “You said you'd incinerate me if I did that.”

“I also said that yesterday would be the last time I reminded you of that fact.”

A soft laugh, and then more silence.

Then:

“… What was the lesson, by the way?”

“Lesson?” Ondolemar echoed.

“In hardheartedness.”

“Oh. That. Hardheadedness, I think, would be a more apt term. The example I point to is doubtless one with which you are intimately familiar. The civil war. Naturally, as you are aware, both the Empire and the Stormcloak rebels hate the Thalmor. So what, exactly do we do when you two fight each other?”

“… Nothing?” Elof guessed.

“Exactly.”

“But isn't it better for you if the Empire wins?”

“Perhaps. Certainly I would currently be free instead of waiting to be beheaded had Markarth not fallen. But my orders were--,” Ondolemar cut himself off, abruptly. Enemy. This Nord was an _enemy_. Young or not, Ondolemar could not afford to forget that. “Well, politics never were my arena. Too much paperwork. I leave that to the First Emissary.”

There was a slight pause.

“That's fair,” Elof allowed, at last. “I leave politics to Jarl Ulfric, too.”

“He is undoubtedly more skilled at them than you.”

“Thanks.”

Another silence.

Ondolemar worked absently at his restraints. He was getting closer. He could rotate his wrists more than before, he thought. He had Windhelm's disgusting food to thank for that. If he kept losing weight at this rate, he'd be free within the month. Always assuming, of course, that no one saw fit to execute him and the Nords didn't swarm him the moment he tried running like they had last time.

“There has been no word from the Embassy yet, regarding me?” Ondolemar asked, at last.

“Not that I've heard. I think if any Thalmor had turned up in Windhelm I would have.”

Unpleasant, but not unexpected.

If the Thalmor stooped to negotiate for every operative who'd been incompetent enough to get themselves captured, they'd not have been able to show themselves proudly in public anywhere. He hoped his replacement-- if he'd been replaced-- would have more luck than himself.

“You should stop that,” Elof said.

“Stop what?”

“Your wrist. You're bleeding.”

Ondolemar glanced down.

“One shallow scrape. Hardly enough to qualify as _bleeding_.”

“If it makes you feel better, I don't think Jarl Ulfric's scheduled your execution date yet.”

“It does not.”

Another silence.

Then the boy reached-- actually _reached_ \-- through the bars of his door and put a hand on his shoulder as if he was someone who was in need of _comfort_. Ondolemar stiffened for a moment, feeling-- what? Amusement, he thought, might be there. Disbelief, too, and irritation. A moment they lasted, and then Ondolemar mastered himself, reminded himself that he was a Thalmor, and leveled a deadly glare at the offending appendage. It did not take the hint, and so Ondolemar elaborated.

“Remove your hand, or I will break it.”

The hand withdrew.

“Sorry. It's okay though, you know. To be scared.”

“I wonder how my fragile, emotional mind would have survived without that reminder?”

“I mean it.”

“I'm sure you do. Let me assure you, however that I reserve 'scared,' for when I have been soul-trapped by a necromancer with a black soul gem, I have no magicka left, and a lightning bolt is being leveled at my chest, _not_ for a simple beheading or the drunken bouts your Jarl seems to think qualify as torture.”

“Fair enough,” Elof allowed. “Was that actually…?

“It was. Auri-El intervened, and an ally I'd thought dead turned out to be feigning it. She managed to stay unnoticed, and ran the necromancer through from behind. An inelegant death, but elegance was not really my priority at the time.”

“I'll bet it wasn't,” Elof said, with feeling.

He looked like he would have said more, but at that moment, a deep voice sounded from the general direction of the ramp that lead to the prisons. Elof froze, eyes widening in dismay. Ondolemar closed his eyes, silently cursing, his headache returning with a vengeance.

“I can't help thinking,” Ulfric Stormcloak said, “That it would have solved a lot of my problems if your god had not saved you, elf.”

One thing was certain.

Ondolemar doubted he'd be getting any soup tonight.


	9. In Which Ulfric Stormcloak Is Not Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## In Which Ulfric Stormcloak Is Not Happy

“Explain yourself.”

Ulfric stood opposite his errant soldier in the War Room, expression thunderous.

Elof gulped, which was sensible of him. It was a pity the boy hadn't shown as much sense this morning.

“What,” Ulfric said dangerously, “Were you doing, speaking with that prisoner? Why did you steal food for him, and answer him when he asked about the Thalmor Embassy? Are you one of theirs?”

The boy shook his head fervently.

“No, of course not! Da would kill me.”

“He would not get the chance.”

“I'm not sure if you've met my da or not, but I don't think any Thalmor would be able to stop him. He's pretty terrifying when he loses it. I don't think Ondolemar would deter him much...”

Ulfric tried to detect any trace of irony in Elof's voice, and failed.

“I did not mean that your father would be stopped. I meant that _I_ would execute you before he did.”

“Oh. Right.”

The boy's voice was steady enough, but at his side, his hands were shaking.

Wonderful. Ulfric was succeeding in terrifying a child of barely fifteen winters; one who'd lost an older brother to this cause just two months ago who could not have been eighteen.

“I'm not one of theirs. It's just that I felt like Stendarr was telling me to visit him and so I did, and then I sort of annoyed him into talking to me… he's really lonely, I think. He calls me 'brat' a lot, but he said I shouldn't be helping a Thalmor since he'd kill me if he got the chance, and it'd be a shame if I died.”

“You're not doing a good job of convincing me you're not working for him.”

“I'm not. Really. I swear by Talos. It's just,” Elof's gaze slid from his, to the floor, “Everyone _looks_ at me. No one says it, but everyone thinks it. Nords go to Sovngarde, everyone knows that, but where do half-Bretons souls go? Does Shor fight it out with Sheor to claim us? Do the elven gods get a look-in just because there's elf blood in us too somewhere? I don't like wondering, but I can't help it. If I do what they want me to, I feel like if I die _really impressively_ in battle they might let me go to Sovngarde like you.”

Ulfric felt a migraine developing. His idea of faith was trusting that Talos had his back, and having Talos' in return. This vapid quibbling wasn't something he knew how to address. His first instinct was to blame the boy's Breton father, but he curbed it. That instinct was likely why the boy hadn't approached him or any other commanding officer in the first place.

“And so you sought out the Justiciar.”

Elof flushed.

Ulfric's migraine worsened.

_Who do you serve, boy? Stendarr or me?_

“Do you know how many servants of Talos he has killed?”

The boy was silent.

“And still you would seek him out?”

“I don't tell him anything about the war,” the boy protested, with the innocence of someone too young, too _blind_ , to see how deadly a handful of scattered words and the cruel intelligence that burned within the high-elves could be. “I only told him things like… like that we didn't get to fight the dragon. He listens. And… he tells me things. They're not always true, but they're interesting... You're not going to hurt him for this, are you? It's my fault for visiting him. He told me not to, and he wouldn't even let me take the metal things off him when I offered...”

Ulfric's headache threatened to split his head in two.

The matter was clear enough. The boy was young-- too young-- and very, very vulnerable after the death of his brother, and the Thalmor was clearly taking advantage of it to manipulate him into... well, Ulfric wasn't sure what, but _something._  Ulfric ranked it better than his soldier being a traitor, but not by much.

Elof mumbled something, softly.

“Speak up, boy.”

Elof swallowed, worrying the hem of one glove.

“I said, am I going to be executed?”

“No,” Ulfric said.

The boy sagged in relief.

“I am, however, going to be assigning you to the job of chopping firewood for the smithy, and of stoking the courtyard braziers, for the period of a month, since it seems to me that you have far too much free time on your hands. Report to Galmar, and tell him of your assignment. And,” Ulfric added, “If I see you visiting the Thalmor again without my _explicit_ permission, I will be telling your father and having you restationed to another hold.”

“You won't, Jarl Ulfric.”

“I'd better not. You may leave.”

The boy did. He paused in the doorway though, looking back.

“If Stendarr--,”

“If Stendarr wants the elf visited, you can tell him to let _me_ know that directly as well.”

The boy left.

“He means well,” Galmar said, later. “Damn Thalmor. If they got the chance, they'd corrupt us all.”

“Aye,” Ulfric agreed, “That they would.”

* * *

Ulfric visited the Thalmor again, in the evening.

The elf had rejected the straw, as he'd rejected it every other day, and sat near the entrance of the cell with his back to the wall. One leg was stretched out before him, the other bent, and his hands were folded neatly across his chest. Though he looked up, he did not rise at Ulfric's approach. Perhaps he thought that being smaller would make him less of a target. Well, if he did, he was wrong.

“Stand.”

“So you can knock me down? I think not.”

“You acknowledge, then, that you deserve to be knocked down?”

“I acknowledge nothing of the sort. You Nords are predictable, that is all, and when one looks at me the way you are currently doing and bunches their hands into fists, bodily harm to me inevitably follows.”

“You acknowledge nothing of the sort?” Ulfric echoed. “The boy is _fifteen_.”

There was a slight pause.

“I am aware.”

“And still you ensnared him in your schemes?”

The Thalmor's lip curled.

“Did you expect me not to? To exercise restraint just because he was a child? I am sorry to disappoint you, but I hardened my heart against that sort of weakness centuries ago. If the thought of children being harmed by me bothers you, you should not choose to accept them into your army, or allow them free access to my cell.”

Ulfric's eyes flashed. There was just enough truth in the words to sting.

“What did you plot with the boy?”

The elf hesitated.

“Little enough,” he sniffed, at last. “I would have _liked_ to ask him to slip poison into your mead, but it was difficult to get a word in edge-ways. The brat talked a great deal, you see, mostly about irritating trivialities like whether I was born bald or made a habit of cutting out human hearts. A somewhat useless tool, and, more annoyingly, one who was as enthusiastic about your misguided cause as he was about your false god. And Stendarr. He seemed very devoted to the Lord of Justice and Mercy, which I confess that I found odd in a soldier following _you_.”

The elf was not telling the whole truth, but he was offering more than Ulfric had thought he might.

The question was, why?

Frowning, Ulfric stepped closer to the bars. Proximity was intimidating, he knew, as was height.

“I assume,” the Thalmor said, tracking his movement, “That the brat is destined for a flogging?”

“He is not. I do not consider flogging a very effective punishment.”

Something flickered in the elf's eyes, gone before Ulfric could decide what it was.

In one fluid motion, the Thalmor stood.

"Yes, I imagine that you would not. There is an art to it, after all, and art is something you are sadly lacking on this wretched rock."

"There is no art in torture," Ulfric said, eyes dark. "That the Thalmor would seek to invent it, though, does not surprise me. Did you know that Elof asked me not to hurt you?"

Something flickered in the elf's eyes then. In anyone else's, Ulfric might have called it worry.

"Suicidal of him," the Thalmor said, "But then, he possessed the all the emotional stability of a patch of rotten ice, and the intelligence of a backwards snow troll, so it does not surprise me."

"It made me sick to hear it," Ulfric said, taking a step closer to the bars, "To defend a Thalmor in front of me is not something most risk doing. That he would do so for you, who would send him to Northwatch Keep alongside every other Nord he cared for without thinking twice, were you free, disgusts me.”

“Interesting, that you imply everyone he is close to worships Talos. I will remember that. When I am free, I am sure Elenwen will be very happy to arrange for their... reeducation.”

Ulfric was very sure that he was being baited.

That did not stop him from seeing red. With his right hand, he grasped the Thalmor's collar. The other formed a fist almost of its own accord, and he drove it as hard as he could into the elf's pointed chin. There was a satisfying crunch. The Thalmor swore, staggered and spat out blood. Ulfric punched him again, and kept punching him until a sudden explosion of pain in his stomach sliced through the red haze. Reason returned, and Ulfric reeled, releasing the elf and fighting back the urge to vomit.

The restraints. The damn elf had used his restraints as weapons.

Not for the first time, Ulfric wished tradition did not dictate that a Jarl of Skyrim wore fine clothes instead of good, solid steelplate. For a mage, the elf punched _hard_.

“I have clearly been too soft on you, elf,” Ulfric said, with grudging respect. 

The elf watched him warily, clumsily wiping the blood near his eyes.

“A mistake, I agree, but then, the stupidity of Nords is as legendary as the average Imperial's lust for gold.”

Ulfric breathed deeply, trying to master his temper. The elf was... not behaving rationally. Even if insulting Nords came as easily to Ondolemar of Markarth as breathing, in his current condition he ought, Ulfric thought, to have paused or at least backed an arm's length away from the bars before continuing to taunt him. But no. The elf was leaning against the bars again, eyes hooded, arrogance radiating from him like heat from an open flame.

“What is the matter, Ulfric? Don't you _like_ the idea of beating a prisoner who might actually be able to defend himself? I'm sure you have no shortage of guards who would be willing to hold my arms behind my back while you finished breaking the rest of my face.”

Ulfric took an involuntary step closer to the Thalmor, before mastering himself.

If his enemy was baiting him, it was because he wanted to be attacked. It had to be, because being beaten senseless was the only possible outcome which this Thalmor could expect from openly threatening the lives of Ulfric's subjects and questioning his honor. It was the sort of behavior he would expect from an enemy who sought death, not from one who since he'd been strangled, had-- at least in Ulfric's hearing-- refrained from bringing up the number innocents he'd killed and from any sudden movements at all.

The elf had begun his baiting when Ulfric had said he'd not be flogging Elof of Windhelm.

Was the elf unhappy with the lightness of that sentence?

Was he upset that a Nord had asked for mercy on his behalf?

Or-- a difficult thought to entertain-- Was it possible that for all his professed disdain, the elf actually... did want to protect the boy?

If he'd judged Ulfric by the foul standards of his own kind, he might well have assumed something far worse than being whipped was going to befall the soldier, once Ulfric had brought up torture. If the elf had... if he'd decided that to prevent it, he just had to convince Ulfric that the boy deserved pity instead of death or torture because all he was guilty of was being lonely, and being used and tossed aside by a monster... then he was going the right way about it. Was it possible that this suicidal taunting was the Thalmor's version of Elof's much plainer:

_It's my fault. You're not going to hurt him for this, are you?_

“Tell me, elf," Ulfric said abruptly, "How do the Thalmor discipline those caught feeding and talking with their enemies?”

A slight pause.

“I fail to see how that is relevant.”

The elf's gaze was icy. Ulfric met it and held it.

“If it is pity, not treason, that moves them, then in Windhelm we discipline them by assigning them to chopping firewood for the smithy for a week or two, and if that does not clear their minds, we transfer them to a different hold.”

Silence.

"I see," the elf said at last, re-seating himself against the wall, and pressing his iron-bound hand against his rapidly-blackening eye. "And I care why, exactly?"

Talos curse the elf. Ulfric would like to have known the answer to that, too.

There were stereotypes for the races of Tamriel which Ulfric had drawn up in his own mind long ago. Nords did not fear death, and loved mead and a good brawl. Khajiits liked skooma. Wood-elves liked stealing. Imperials liked gold. And Thalmor liked treading on the lives of innocents and tearing them apart without a second thought. The elf should have conformed to his type. That he apparently was not doing so was hard to accept.

 _He's really lonely_ , Elof had said.

Was that the reason why this elf had bonded so quickly with the boy?

“What do the Thalmor do?” Ulfric said, again.

“I have no intention of divulging our techniques to you.”

Ulfric's headache returned with vengeance.

“Have you forgotten the taste of our mead already, elf?” he growled.

The Thalmor sneered at him, before grimacing and gingerly touching his broken nose.

“I have not, but I refuse to willingly spill secrets to a Nord. I have _some_ standards left.”

"You do, do you? So if I summoned a man to bring ten bottles of Nord Mead right now, you would remain unshaken?"

There was a short silence.

“Give me a bottle of Colovian Brandy, and I will consider it.”

“Tell me the location of a secret entrance to the lair of Elenwen the Harpy, who guards it, and I will send men to retrieve it for you.”

The elf flushed and shot him a filthy look. He followed it up with directions to a cave which Ulfric understood to be, from the reports of his scouts, occupied by a pair of frost trolls.

Damn elf.

“I'm tempted to bind you hand and foot and throw you in there for your “friends” to find you.”

The Thalmor paled slightly, but said gamely:

“Far be it from me to dissuade you from granting me my freedom.”

Stubborn elf.

Ulfric called for a guard--Cahlad was the first to respond-- and sent him to fetch the mead.

Ulfric lined the bottles up far enough from the cell that the elf could not break them.

The elf eyed the mead with loathing.

“Tell me, and I will leave you alone for the rest of today."

"That offer would be more tempting if there were more of today left."

"Tomorrow too, then. Don't tell me, and I will make you drink these and get my information as well as, I hope, a repeat of your spinning top dance, and your song.”

The elf shot him a baleful glare.

“It is called, 'The Dance of Ten Thousand Spires,' not, 'The Spinning Top Dance,' and my offer was Colovian Brandy for a willing answer.”

“I am content with getting an unwilling answer.”

The elf eyed the mead a bit longer.

“Are you content giving one?” Ulfric said.

One minute passed.

Two.

"It would vary. If my supervisor was feeling merciful, then I would be flogged, reassigned, and the matter forgotten."

"And if he were not?"

"I seem to recall you promising that you would _leave."_

"I will leave when you tell me the full answer."

“… Fine," the elf gritted out, glaring at him. "Assuming the absolute _worst-case_ scenario, had I been caught displaying such stupidity-- which I would not have been, since unlike _you,_  the Thalmor have protocols in place which regulate access to sensitive prisoners-- my superiors would have had me questioned closely to see if my motive was pity, boredom or dissidence. For the latter, I would have faced execution. The former two would have seen me locked me in a cage reminiscent of a small aviary and hung up for target practice for agents trying to master destruction spells.”

Once, Ulfric had hung in such a cage.

Did this Thalmor know that, or was this just coincidence?

“Eventually, after a month," the elf continued, with a swift, sharp look that made Ulfric frown and banish all unnecessary emotion from his face, "Those same mer would have questioned me again, and the cycle would have repeated itself until I died, or they were sure I would not be repeating the misconduct. A far more intimidating punishment than chopping firewood, which is perhaps why the Thalmor struggle far less with incompetent operatives overempathising with enemies than Nords do. I trust you are satisfied? Now keep your word, and leave me alone.”

Ulfric, a man of his word, did.

That night, he dreamed he was stuck in a cage being slowly burned alive.

He placed the blame for it squarely on the Thalmor's shoulders.


	10. Interlude: A Disturbing Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

_Galmar,_

_You may have heard about my recent visit to the Thalmor Embassy._

_Rest assured, I sent many of the high-elves on to meet their gods._

_While I was there, however, I found something disturbing in a dossier belonging to their First Emissary. I cannot risk putting the matter down in writing, but it has to do with certain events that took place prior to the Markarth Incident, and during the Great War. Send word to me if Ulfric Stormcloak is willing to speak with me about these matters. He will know already what they are._

_Know that I cannot serve him further until these matters are addressed._

_Talos be with you,_

_E._


	11. The Staff of Charming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Staff of Charming

Twenty-six hungry, cold but _blessedly_ silent hours after the Unfortunate Elof Incident, as he'd mentally dubbed it, Ondolemar woke to the sound of thunderous footsteps approaching his cell. Two sets of footsteps, actually, and while Ulfric's were predictable-- a new low, when one could recognise Ulfric Stormcloak solely by the sound of his feet-- the other set belonged, from the look of it, to Windhelm's battlemage. He was carrying a staff, and at the sight of it Ondolemar stood, immediately wary. It was beneath his dignity to ask what was happening, but he was suddenly acutely aware of his current inability to throw up a ward.

“Use it,” Ulfric ordered, “I have no time today for his games.”

“It's only _called_ the Staff of Charming, mind you,” the old mage said, crustily. “But I will be very interested to see the results of it. Now, let me see here… try to hold still, won't you? It's so hard to aim these things at moving subjects properly, and I wouldn't want to waste charges.”

Wonderful. He was going to be playing lab rat to a Nord who couldn't even aim.

“Would it help if I sat for you, old man?” Ondolemar said, with false sympathy.

“Yes, that would be much more convenient,” the mage said.

“Then I shall remain standing.”

“Can't say I'm surprised. Altmer are a disobliging lot,” the mage said, and leveled the staff at him.

Unfortunately, dodging was also beneath his dignity in these close quarters, and so Ondolemar resigned himself to his fate, and braced himself for… whatever the blob of light that was about to connect with his chest would turn out to be.

 _A calming spell?_ Ondolemar thought… calmly.

“Interesting,” the old man said, writing something down in a journal.

Ondolemar really ought to have been annoyed at that. At the moment, however, he wasn't feeling much of anything at all. A problem, but not one he could not overcome. As a Thalmor agent, he'd had a great deal of practice in following the logical courses charted by his mind instead of the dubious rapids of his much-suppressed emotions. And at least, his logical mind calmly reminded him, this wasn't a genuine charm spell. They'd fallen out of fashion these days, but discovering in oneself an almost overwhelming affection for someone one had previously been trying one's best to char to cinders was always unpleasant.

“Your cells are very cold,” Ondolemar said. “You should consider giving your prisoners blankets.”

“If I wanted them comfortable, I agree that that would be the best course.”

Ondolemar mm'd his agreement.

“That was not why I came, however.”

“I thought that might be the case.”

“I came,” Ulfric said, ignoring him, “To find out what exactly is written about me in Elenwen's dossier. Specifically, what might be enough to make a loyal soldier of mine consider desertion.”

“A great many things.”

“Such as?”

Calmly, Ondolemar considered all the possible, desertion-worthy things one could possibly know about Ulfric Stormcloak, and cross-referenced them with the options that Elenwen might possibly also know and not have him assassinated for revealing.

“Age. Religion. Your favorite song… That would be the “Age of Oppression,” for you, yes?”

“You are lying, elf.”

“That is a hurtful comment. Were I not bespelled at the moment to feel nothing, I would probably take it personally… You should watch your temper, by the way,” Ondolemar added, solicitously, “If you are not careful, you could give yourself a stroke.”

“I'm surprised the thought does not transport you with joy.”

Ondolemar gave the matter his consideration.

“It would-- at least once this spell wore off-- if you were to die _after_ freeing me. But since I doubt that any of your subordinates would not be immediately strapping me to that rack,” helpfully, Ondolemar pointed to the device, just in case they'd missed it, “For now, I hope you do not suffer an aneurism.”

“I thought you did not fear pain or death, elf.”

“Yes, well, that does not mean I enjoy them. I'm not a sadist, after all.”

“Is there anything of which you are afraid _enough_ of to be cowed by?”

“Elenwen. And I object to the term 'cowed', by the way.”

“Elenwen?” Ulfric echoed.

“Yes. Sometimes, I wonder if she scrys me. She _always_  seems to know when I've persuaded my guards do my paperwork for me, even that one time I had a Bosmer assigned to me solely for his ability to forge my handwriting so well that even I could not tell the difference. She said I would be sent back for reeducation if I did it a third time.”

“Reeducation?”

“It's not a nice process.”

Ulfric made an interrogative noise.

Ondolemar felt a dull prick of… something.

“I am aware that at the moment, I do not  _care_ about the consequences of spilling secrets like these to you, but that does not mean that I am not aware that I _should_ care.”

“It's very curious,” the old Nord muttered to himself, releasing another blob of light at him, “The difference between a subject's response to a spell when they know they've been enchanted, and when they think what they feel is genuine...”

“It is, isn't it?” Ondolemar agreed, “You would get along well with my academy instructors.”

“Probably. I am a member of the College of Winterhold, after all.”

“Oh? Well, I am sure your skill does them credit.”

The old man scribbled something inside a book.

Ulfric Stormcloak reached for his temple, pressing a finger against it.

“Headache?” Ondolemar asked, “You really should be careful of your health. Especially at your age. I'm not sure what it is, quite, but you must be getting on these days, for a human?”

“You really, truly, _honestly_ expect me to believe, elf, that you have been in Skyrim for _six years_ , attending _each one_ of Elenwen's damned parties without fail, and that not _once_ in all that time did you have any interest in, or any orders from her, to read up about the _leader of the Stormcloak rebellion_?”

“You know, 'really, truly, honestly' is somewhat excessive, I think. They mean the same thing, after all.”

“Oh for Talos's sake-- just answer the question!” Ulfric exploded.

“There is no need to get upset,” Ondolemar said, calmly, “I was only being helpful.”

“This is not working,” Ulfric said, to the old mage.

“No,” the mage agreed, “But it is interesting. He is able to subvert the staff's influence, even when there is no stimuli in his mind rewarding him for the decision, because he has convinced himself there _will_ be one, that he _will_ care about eventually. It really is quite a feat. I wonder if he is familiar with the school of Illusion?”

Ulfric looked blank.

Ondolemar felt blank, too, but… calmly so.

“Well…” Ulfric said, after a moment or two, “I wonder how you feel about being rendered drunk?”

“Not too badly, to be honest. I am hungry, and your mead-- despite the fact that it leaves me with a headache, and tastes vile-- is filling, and better than your rotten potato soup. And it is warm.”

Ulfric looked at him searchingly.

“Are you trying to starve yourself, elf?”

“No. That would be sad, since then I would be dead. Auri-El would ask me how I had died, and I would have to tell him that I had died inside a Nord jail because I would not eat rotten potato. Even the Falmer ate poison to live. Though actually, they are perhaps not a very good example to follow, are they?”

Ulfric exchanged a speaking look with the old man.

“Don't hit him again with the staff. We know at least that it does not work now.”

“True… it is a pity sentient experimentation is frowned upon...”

“It is not in Alinor,” Ondolemar said, helpfully, “You should pay my homeland a visit.”

“I happen to value my high standing with the College, thank you very much.”

“I don't see why, but each to his own. Send Ancano my regards if you see him, won't you?”

“I do not visit often, but if I do see him, I will be sure to do so.”

“Thank you.”

The mage looked a bit amused, which Ondolemar frowned at on principle, since it was something he felt he ought to have minded. Once he'd left, Ulfric stood silently, waiting. After fifteen seconds, Ondolemar began to feel something uncomfortable stirring inside him. After thirty, that 'something' became _everything_ that had been missing, and for one sickening moment only willpower kept him on his feet and gazing icily ahead, instead of crumpling against the wall, shivering and clutching his head.

“I see the effects are wearing off,” Ulfric said.

If Ondolemar could have trusted himself not to vomit, he would have spat out a suitably scathing reply.

Someone, somewhere ought to have conducted a study on the effects of multiple calming spells being cast repeatedly on someone in quick succession, and passed a law prohibiting it.

“Well, now that you are yourself again, and cannot pretend to misunderstand, let us try this again. What sort of information does Elenwen have about me, written in her dossier?”

 _Auri-El,_ Ondolemar prayed, _Make him silent. For just two minutes, make him be silent._

Mercifully, this time, Auri-El listened.

It was a full five minutes before Ulfric caught onto the fact that he wasn't going to be answered.

“I will give you a blanket if you tell me.”

Ondolemar silently cursed Ulfric and Ulfric's family up four generations.

“I…,” he gritted out, “Have no interest in getting a blanket from you. And even if I did, I could not tell you anyway because I have no idea what is written in that book. I do not like reading. I do not like paperwork, and-- though of course I respect her greatly-- I do not like Elenwen. Thus, spending time in her company reading just to learn the weaknesses of enemies I never anticipated that I would _need_ to deal with personally was not high on my list of priorities. The only thing that shocks me is that the thing was written a language that a passing Nord spy was able to understand, instead of being properly coded or at the very least written in one of our more obscure elven tongues.”

Ulfric took a step closer to him.

“Yes… had it been true, she would have tried harder to make it unreadable, would she not?”

So, Ulfric wanted whatever was in it to be false, did he?

“That is not necessarily true,” Ondolemar said, nastily. “Not all the Thalmor are Altmer. Not all were educated in the dead languages, or even all the living elven dialects. Since her security is impressive, she could have prioritised the accessibility of the information for future First Emissaries. She is not, after all, going to be stationed here forever.”

Ulfric's expression darkened. Ondolemar felt a stab of petty satisfaction.

It faded too quickly. He wished Ulfric would leave so he could collapse into a corner in peace.

Naturally, the Jarl did not listen to this mental prodding.

“If he is considering switching sides, this soldier of yours,” Ondolemar said at last, when it became apparent the Jarl wasn't going to be leaving on his own, “He cannot have been all that reliable to start off with. Just cut his head off for treason, and have done with it.”

“I did not ask for your advice, elf.”

Ondolemar shot him a resentful look.

“I don't see why you are still here bothering me then. Just meet the man, and ask him what it is that he read. You know your own history. Whatever Elenwen has added that you know you did not do are lies.”

Ulfric looked him directly.

“Do you want the Stormcloak rebellion to win or lose?”

“To lose. Obviously.”

“That was not what you said to Elof.”

Ondolemar pressed his lips together thinly.

“To him, you said that you wanted neither side to win.”

“The Thalmor are neutral in this war. Now that I am in your jail, I am not.”

“So if,” Ulfric said, holding his gaze, “I were to take your restraints off right now, and hand you a sword, you would choose to run me through?”

“Tempting as that thought is, since doing so would mean that your little friends one floor above us would immediately tear me into more pieces than a starving snow bear would a fat, slow deer, I can safely say that I would do no such thing.”

“Answer me plainly, elf. Who do the Thalmor want to win this war?”

“Us.”

“You?”

“Think about it. The longer the stalemate lasts, the firmer our foothold on this rock grows. I do not know what answer you are hoping for, or afraid of, but I can assure you that we do not favor you _or_ the Empire. If there is some reason you have to think we favor you, you may credit it to your abysmal effort in winning the war, and us attempting to re-balance a set of faltering scales.”

There was a short pause. Then Ulfric turned to a corner of the room, and a figure stepped out. Ondolemar frowned, wondering how he'd missed someone wearing _that much_ dragonbone who'd been standing in plain sight.

“Have you any further questions, Einar?”

Einar? The mercenary who'd sometimes turned up in Markarth, and who had seemed willing, from what Ondolemar remembered, to do pretty much anything anyone would pay him for, no matter how immoral, tedious or brutal?

Ondolemar wondered if that included being hired to rescue Thalmor from Windhelm jails.

“No,” Einar said. “I think my doubts are resolved. I don't think you're working with the Thalmar. At least, you're not consciously making an effort to further their interests, though I'm still not convinced that it was the best timing for Skyrim when you declared the rebellion. Still, I will own that as matters stand, I'd _far_ rather see you as my High King than Tullius-by-proxy through a Jarl who leaves every important matter in her hold to her steward.”

“Good man,” Ulfric said, approvingly.

“ _He_ was the one who was thinking of switching sides?” Ondolemar said.

“He was,” Ulfric confirmed.

“Thanks, by the way, Ondolemar,” Einar said, with a fierce grin, “For suggesting that a _really_ good solution to my dilemma of which side to pick would be to behead me. The Dragonborn. If you're wondering if I'm open to being hired, by the way, the answer is no. Not until the dragon threat's been dealt with and Jarl Ulfric's the High King.”

Auri-El curse the both of them to Oblivion.

To add insult to injury, Ulfric tossed him a genuine snow-bear pelt before he and Einar left.

Once he was safely alone, Ondolemar curled up inside it, warm for the first time in a week, and counted all the ways in which he would, when he was free, slowly murder both of them.


	12. Two Is (Sometimes) Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Two Is (Sometimes) Company

On the eighth day of his imprisonment, the guards brought another prisoner into the cells. An unexpected development, this. Ondolemar had decided days ago that the rebels who guarded Windhelm were either too incompetent, or too obsessed with the war, to bother with their day-jobs. It seemed he'd done them an injustice. 

The criminal was a Dunmer who'd been arrested, it seemed, for using illegal narcotics-- and was very volubly denying it.

"It's not mine!" he was saying now, "I have no idea how that skooma got underneath my desk. Really!”

“Tell that to the steward, elf.”

"I don't even own a skooma pipe!"

“You can tell Jorleif that too.”

"If he were _here,_ I would! You Nords-- just because I'm a dark elf, you won't listen to anything I say! This is not fair!”

There was dull thud and a clank, as the Dunmer was tossed inside his cell and the prison door locked behind him. This did not deter the elf, who immediately pressed himself against the bars, craning his head out between them.

"I'm not guilty! I'm not! I can't believe my taxes are helping to pay the wages of Nords like you!"

The guards ignored him, and turned to leave.

This fact, too, did not seem to deter the Dunmer, who promptly launched a volley of pleas, threats, and protests of innocence at their departing backs, and-- Ondolemar could only assume, once the guards had left-- at the empty air. He kept it up for a good twenty minutes. A mer of great stamina, it seemed, though his intelligence clearly left much to be desired.

"I applaud your eloquence,” Ondolemar said, one mer to another, when he finally paused for breath. "I am sure the torches and the rack do too. I am less sure, however, that persuading them will help your case."

“I'm addressing the guards one floor above me,not the _furnishings,_ thank you very much. Those Nords can't ignore me forever!" the Dunmer said, before pausing to look at him, red eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Are you a Thalmor?”

Ondolemar lifted his chin haughtily.

"What do your eyes and your logic tell you, Dunmer?"

"... They tell me that they let you keep your clothes-- which is unfair, since they made _me_ wear rags, but that sort of racism is _just_ like them-- and your clothes aren't those pretentious robes or elven armor. So... no?"

Ondolemar's disposition dropped several notches.

"You can't blame me for wondering," the dark elf persisted, oblivious, "Those murdering fanatics give all high elves a bad name.”

"We _Thalmor,_ Dunmer," Ondolemar informed him dangerously, "Are all that currently stands between the reputation of the collective mer of Tamriel and the muck, thanks to disgraceful wretches like _you_ who cannot see superiority when it stares you in the face and go around begging Nords for mercy."

Silence.

"You're not going to kill me, are you?"

"I am in jail awaiting execution. Unless you are allergic to scorn-- which seems unlikely, since you have survived this long living with the Nords of Windhelm-- you are safe."

The dark elf relaxed a bit.

"Believe it or not, there was  _once_ a time when we they weren't scornful of us, and we didn't _need_ to beg for aid. Jarl Ulfric is the reason that changed," the Dunmer said, darkly. "Anyway, I suppose it doesn't really matter if you are a Thalmor or not, since we're both in the same boat now. It's not like I'm involved in this war. This fight is between the you, the Imperials and the Nords, not us Dunmer. We suffer enough as it is."

With this sensible, if unpatriotic, repudiation, the dark elf went back to pleading his case to the roof. He might have been standing before Steward Jorleif in the flesh, such dedication did he pour into his evidence, references, and logical proofs. A commendable effort, all things considered. Then phase two began, which was much less convincing, since it mainly seemed to involve begging every Daedra and Aedra with an interest in Nirn at large-- with the exception of Talos-- to deliver mercy, vengeance and justice on the Dunmer's behalf.

It was an hour before he finished.

“Out of interest,” Ondolemar said, when the silence stretched, “What will the Nords do to you, if they decide the skooma is yours?”

The dark elf hesitated.

“Fine me,” he admitted, grudgingly.

“Fine you."

"Yes."

"How much?"

"... One hundred gold pieces. That's not the _point,_ though. The point is, I don't deserve it! They've already upped their blasted taxes three times this year. Rising housing costs and the dragon threat my ass, I know they're trying to force us dark elves out! Well, I won't stand for it. We're all sentient beings. We deserve to be treated as equals to the Nords. We deserve-- why are you making that face at me?” the Dunmer said, suspiciously.

“I am lamenting the fact that you probably share blood-- extremely distantly-- with me.”

“Well, console yourself with the fact that I'm lamenting it right back, _cousin._ You know, if it hadn't been for you Thalmor, I could have been--,”

“Overrun by Daedra? Glorying inside a tiny cage, being roasted by a friendly Dremora?”

“Oh, for-- I wasn't born yesterday. I was _alive_ two hundred years ago, even if I _was_ in Morrowind. The whole of Tamriel knew it was _Martin Septim_ who stopped Mehrunes Dagon.”

“Lies,” Ondolemar sniffed. “Imperial propaganda.”

“Whatever. I wouldn't know. For all I know, Azura stopped him and you're _both_ trying to take the credit for it.”

“Trust a Dunmer to give credit to a Daedric Prince for our achievements.”

The dark elf's chest swelled.

“You're looking down on me right now, aren't you?”

“However did you manage to guess?”

“You're _just_ as bad as the Nords.”

“Whereas you, by contrast, are a shining beacon of light, tolerance and hope for all.”

The dark elf sent him a black look.

“When they execute you-- well, whatever your name is, I hope it's the sort that's open to the public.”

"I doubt your Jarl will disappoint you."

“He disappoints me every day. But you're right. He wouldn't on that. He'd probably even attend _your_ execution personally,” the Dunmer spat, dwelling on this imagined event with loathing, “His high-and-mightiness who couldn't drag himself even three streets down to the Grey Quarter to see the squalor we live in because of the war-- ha! Yes, I know all about the war. I bet he'd make the time to watch for an _hour_ while your crimes were read out and the headsman swung his axe.”

“I am a superior specimen of a superior race. It is natural that I merit more attention in death than you do in life.”

"That's so--," the Dunmer seemed unable to continue.

"True?" Ondolemar suggested.

“You know, I would _dearly_ like to take a knife to that tongue of yours.”

“You would, would you?"

"Yes. Well, maybe. I don't know. I don't like blood."

"I can assure you that you will have a hard time removing my tongue without it."

Silence, once more. This time, Ondolemar did not break it.

The Dunmer alternated between repeating his monologues to the ceiling, and pacing.

It was a full two hours before he stopped and finally sat, fidgeting with one ragged hem of his trousers.

"The slurry leaked from the higher parts of Windhelm into the ground floor of my business again last night."

"You seem to be under the impression that I care."

"You could at least have the decency to _pretend_ to. Anyway, I've been shoveling it since two in the morning," the Dunmer said, "Sewage, too. And then, just when I'd finally got the last of it out, and had set a pot of stew on the fire to have some breakfast, the guards came. Not to help, no-- Azura forbid they actually  _help_ a dark elf. No, they came to arrest me because they said they'd found some skooma near my desk."

"You do realise, I trust, that Solitude has no leaking sewers at all and is only a few days north, and that Morrowind is once more livable?"

"Between the bandits, the dragons and the war, I'd never make it alive. It's not like I'd be protected by any guards."

"If you own your own business, I'm sure you could afford to hire some."

"That's not the point. I shouldn't have to!"

Ondolemar looked at him, unimpressed.

"Look, I'll make my point. I'm hungry."

"That was your point?"

"I was building up to it, until you distracted me," the Dunmer said, defensively.

"I'm sure you were," Ondolemar agreed, politely.

The dark elf glared at him for a bit, before sighing.

"Well... anyway. My question is, are you going to eat that?"

Ondolemar followed the darl elf's gaze down to his untouched breakfast tray. His lip curled.

“No.”

"Then can I have it?”

“Have you anything of value that you can give me in exchange for it?”

The dark elf folded his arms across his chest.

“I don't see why I should need to give you anything. You've already said you don't want it.”

“It is not the food you are bartering for, cousin, but the effort that it will take me to kick the tray of it across to you. I can assure you, when you have eaten as little as I have for as long as I have, and are recovering from repeated beatings, you do not feel much like feeding Dunmer skooma addicts who are hoping you will have a public execution.”

“I am _not_ a skooma addict!”

“So you claim.”

“I'm not! Why aren't you eating, anyway?”

“Because I am hoping to become thin enough to fit through the bars.”

“… Really?”

“Of course not. I have something called _standards_ , which apply both to the quality of the food I eat and the dignity of my escape attempts.”

The Dunmer was silent, for a bit.

“I have a lockpick?” he said, at last.

“Tempting, but as you can see,” Ondolemar held up his hands, “Ultimately useless.”

“I could pick my lock, and then, if it didn't break, which it probably would, I could pick the lock on your restraints?”

"My restraints do not have locks. Such sophistication was beyond my captors."

"Well what are they then?"

"Does it matter, cousin? I was under the impression that you wished to take a knife to my tongue. Surely, you do not wish to help me.”

“I don't, but I'm hungry. Anyway, I don't have a knife. I'd have been threatening suicide if I'd managed to pickpocket one from a guard. Not that the threat of a dark elf slicing their own throat from pure desperation would have worked on the cold bastards any better than an honest plea.”

“Very likely not,” Ondolemar agreed. “They might actually have been grateful to you.”

“By Azura, you're--,” the Dunmer broke off abruptly, glaring.

“Was I supposed to have sympathised?”

“It would have been nice.”

“Suicide. For one hundred gold pieces. I could not _pay_ a bandit to kill you for so little.”

“… It's the _principle_ of it all. The _injustice_.”

Ondolemar raised an eyebrow.

“I wouldn't expect you to understand anyway,” the dark elf said, “Seeing as you're just like them, believing that your blood gives you the right to treat other people like dirt.”

“The difference is that I am correct. They are not.”

“Fine. I'll just sit tight on my lockpick and let you suffer, shall I?”

“Do whatever pleases you,” Ondolemar said.

"It would  _please_ me to eat."

There was a short silence. Then:

"... Very well," Ondolemar conceded, "Take off my restraints for me, and I will give you the food. Deal?"

"Deal," the Dunmer agreed, and set to work.

It turned out that while the dark elf might have been an unconvincing advocate for racial equality, he clearly knew his way around locks. After half a minute, the his cell door clicked open. A quick listen to make sure no guards had overheard, and then the mer was padding silently across the room to Ondolemar's cell. Ondolemar made sure he slid the tray back, so the other elf could not take the food without keeping his side of this bargain first.

The dirty look the dark elf shot at him when he did so made him suspect his move had been wise.

"Hand," the Dunmer ordered, kneeling down in front of his cell.

Regally, Ondolemar extended it.

Warm fingers gripped his arm, turning it first left, then right.

“Nasty thing, isn't it? You a thief or a mage, to warrant this?”

“A mage.”

“That'd do it."

"Indeed. Get a move on."

The dark elf shrugged, gripped the thing, and _pulled._ Ondolemar cursed and wrenched himself free, blood leaking down his arm.

"Do that again, and I will skin you."

"Well how am I supposed to get it off then?" the dark elf snapped. "Isn't it an iron glove?"

"It is," Ondolemar gritted out, "But it is one formed from two molded casts with an opening _too small_ for my hands, as anyone with any intelligence at all would have immediately deduced. They are knotted together with leather. It is those knots that I need undone."

"Them? But they're so..."

"So what, exactly?" Ondolemar said flatly.

"Tight. Hard to get at. If I had a knife I could do it, but without that..." the Dunmer trailed off. A moment later, his expression brightened again. "Of course! The torture implements!" Turning, he padded over to a crate in a distant corner, and rummaged through it. "No knives? Who has a box of torture tools with no knives?"

"I'm tempted to point out the obvious, but I won't."

The dark elf shot him a sour look.

A moment later, he swooped triumphantly and plucked out an evil looking implement with a rusted handle and a hooked end.

"I could pry the knots open with one of these things!”

"So long as you ensure that it stays well away from my eyeballs, by all means try it."

The Dunmer eyed the thing queasily.

"Is that what this is? An eyeball harvester?"

"Do I look like a professional torturer, to know such things?"

"Well you did say you were a Thalmor," the Dunmer said snidely, making his way back over to the cell.

Ondolemar glared at him.

"The Thalmor are--"

Suddenly, the Dunmer froze, head tilted. Within what seemed like the same second, he was back inside his cell, the door firmly shut, and had thrust his makeshift tool deep into his pile of straw. A few moments later, Ondolemar heard the reason himself. It seemed that lunch had arrived. A husk of bread for both of them, and a bowl of water. Immediately, the Dunmer fell upon his food as if he had been starved for weeks instead of mere hours. Truly, Ondolemar thought, an example of what prolonged worship of the wrong deities could do to a mer.

The guards turned to leave.

“Mm! When 'm I getting' out?” the Dunmer called to their backs, around his mouthful.

“Late evening, like as not. Jorleif's busy.”

The Dunmer swallowed.

“It's always us who have to wait! If I'd been a Nord--”

One of the guards turned back to him.

“If you'd been a Nord, elf, you'd have had the courage to pick a side in this war in which we spill both sweat and blood, instead of wasting our housing, our food, our time and our jail space, and giving us absolutely nothing back except whining."

"And taxes!" the Dunmer said, outraged.

The Nord shrugged, and left.

"Now, where were we?" Ondolemar said, once they were alone.

“I'm not freeing you anymore,” the Dunmer replied, sending him an apologetic look. “I've thought better of it, now I'm not starving and I'm getting out before tomorrow.”

"One husk of bread was truly enough to sate your hunger?" Ondolemar demanded, glaring.

"Well, no, but I'll be able to eat properly late this evening, once I get out."

"You will," Ondolemar agreed, _"If_ they keep their word."

"True. They may not. But I don't want to die, and it occurred to me that I might be executed if I help you get free."

"That thought did not occur to you before?"

"No. I was hungry."

Ondolemar hoped when this one died, each of the Daedric Princes he'd prayed to would take hold of a corner of his soul, and tear it to pieces.

“Though seeing as I did try before, and you don't want it anyway..."

"You know the terms of my agreement."

The Dunmer huffed, and sat in silence.

"I am prepared," Ondolemar said, after an hour, "To renegotiate. Give me the tool that is hidden in your straw, and I will give you my breakfast. I will engage not to use it to free myself until _after_ you are released, whenever that is, so no one will know that it was you who gave it to me. Thus, you will not be beheaded, even if I am. Well?"

Immediately, the Dunmer's face brightened.

A moment later, and he'd retrieved the tool and stealthily made his way over to Ondolemar's cell.

"You're not so bad, you know."

"I know no such thing. The tool."

The tool was passed to him. Ondolemar kicked it under his own straw heap.

"The food?" the dark elf said.

Ondolemar slid the tray forward.

"If anyone seems to know that I have that tool, by the way," he said threateningly, as the dark elf took the tray and retreated back to the safety of his own cell, "I will know exactly who told them. And I will be sure to tell Ulfric personally that you are a good friend of mine and of the Thalmor as a whole, who often tells us what is going on inside this city."

"I won't. If you got free and killed Ulfric, I'd be very happy, provided I wasn't implicated. It would be justice."

With that, the dark elf began eating.

"... What does it taste like?" Ondolemar asked after a few minutes, morbidly curious.

"I find it much easier to eat when I don't ask myself that question. As long as it doesn't taste of ash or dirt and is not actively poisonous, I can force it down. Once it gets past my throat, it doesn't much matter, does it? It's all food in the end."

"There is a certain logic to that," Ondolemar allowed.

"Mm. Not that an aristocrat like you would ever _really_ understand the pain of the hardships I've faced..."

"Indeed. Even your beloved Azura, I'm sure, trembles in admiration for your fortitude. It is a wonder no one has yet sainted you."

The dark elf shot him a filthy look, and finished his meal in silence.

Four hours later, a beardless Nord with a long, brown mustache made his way downstairs.

"Jorleif," said the Dunmer, leaping to his feet and pressing himself against the bars, "I am innocent! You cannot possibly think that I would possess skooma! My mother  _died_ after a slave went mad on the stuff back in Morrowind. I swore then never to let it past any door of mine. I don't know who put it there, but they're clearly trying to frame me!"

"I know that, Rendar."

"But I don't even know why I'm bothering to defend myself. You Nords never-- wait, what? How do you know about my mother?"

A vein bulged in the Nord's forehead. 

"Not that, elf. We found the culprit. One of the Argonians confessed to dropping it. He's paid his fine, which is why he's not here with me. You're free to go."

The door was unlocked. The dark elf stepped out.

"Oh, well good. It was about time. I fully intend to complain about this, I hope you know! This is unacceptable behavior. Arresting honest storekeepers for no reason at all..."

Rendar's voice receded as the mer was escorted upstairs, to his belongings. Ondolemar nibbled at his stale bread. His _moldy,_ stale bread, if the taste was anything to go by. Still, low as his cousin had fallen, there was merit in his advice. In the end, food was food, and bread was better than rotten vegetables. It would not do to let himself become too weak to run when the chance presented itself, now Auri-El had interceded so kindly and granted him a tool he would hopefully be able to use to free himself.

"... and I'm going to tell him that he needs to do something about the drains. It's just not _fair_  this way _..."_  Rendar's voice drifted down, plaintively.

Ondolemar hoped the mer did get to meet Ulfric personally.

Auri-El willing, the dark elf would do him a favor and give the Nord a migraine.


	13. Subjective Truths (Define Reality)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Subjective Truths (Define Reality)

Ulfric Stormcloak was not a stupid man.

When a Thalmor who'd been turning his nose up at his meals for more than one week started eating, it meant one of two things. Either he'd succeeded in chipping away a piece of the elf's pride, or the elf was trying to live because he'd found something to feel hopeful about.

Bringing in Ambarys Rendar had not helped.

The dark elf was a craven wretch, like so many of his kin.

When asked plainly if he'd discussed anything with the Thalmor, he'd just wrung his hands and whined that this was one more example of racial discrimination which would never have happened in the days of Ulfric's father, and that, as an innocent citizen of Windhelm who'd been arrested on no grounds at all, he should have been getting compensation, not accusations.

“After all, it's not _my_ fault you locked me in the same cell block as… well, whoever he is.”

“Did we arrest him on no grounds at all?” Ulfric asked Jorleif later, once he'd been dismissed.

“We got a tip-off that there was skooma in his house, and there was. I still think that that servant of his bribed the Argonian who confessed to putting it there, but there's no proof of it.”

Damned dark elves. The sooner they left for their own homeland, the better.

Ulfric visited the Thalmor again the next evening, with Galmar.

The elf sat in his usual position by the bars. He looked up when they approached his cell, eyes narrowing.

“I notice that you avoided visiting me yesterday.”

“I had more important matters to attend to,” Ulfric said.

“You did, did you? I wonder, did those matters include fixing your apparently overflowing sewer drains? Or shoveling away budding snow drifts from the streets? Or did they perhaps involve avoiding an incredibly loud, annoying disgrace to the name of mer everywhere, the company of whom you inflicted upon me for more than _eight hours_?”

The Thalmor sounded peeved.

Ulfric would not, and did not-- he told himself, firmly-- sympathise.

“You locked two of the pointy-ears in the same cell?” Galmar said in a low voice, to the guard on duty.

“No. Separate cells, but it's Rendar. You can't _not_ hear him if he's within a few hundred meters of you."

“What do you know of Northwatch Keep?” Ulfric said, to the Thalmor, who seemed a bit too interested in that conversation.

The elf arched an eyebrow.

“It is a useful place. We torture Nords who worship Talos there,” he said snidely.

“That much I do know,” Ulfric said, mastering his flickering temper, “How many guards are stationed there? What are their shifts? Who commands them? Are there any secret entrances to that place? That, elf, is what I wish to know, and what you will tell me.”

“I will, will I?”

“Yes,” Ulfric said.

“You are delusional if you think I will tell you that willingly.”

Ulfric looked at the elf's empty food tray pointedly.

“Already, your resolve and your pride are faltering. The months pass slowly in prison. When one month becomes three, and three become ten, how much of either will you have left?”

“Very little, perhaps,” the high elf said, eyes hooded, “But when three months become ten, Jarl Ulfric, the guards will have changed their shifts, the commander will likely have been promoted, and the number of mer stationed there could have halved or doubled, depending on how your war with the Empire fares. But by all means, delegate your duties to your steward and waste your time interrogating me. Far be it from _me_ to stop you from throwing away the lives of your men in an assault based on information _months_ out of date”

Ulfric's hands clenched into fists.

“You are too lazy to read sensitive files. You allow your guards to complete your reports. Now, you say, your information, when I finally extract it from you, will be useless. You are not making a convincing argument for why your execution should be put off.”

The Thalmor stood, and spread his arms invitingly.

“By all means, behead me. Auri-El will forgive me eventually, I am sure, for being killed by a Nord.”

“I say we strap him to the rack and have done with it,” Galmar said. “If we're going to cut his head off, we might as well have a shot at pain before that to see if it'll work on him.”

“I am not strapping him to the rack,” Ulfric said.

“Why not?”

Ulfric was silent.

“If you are hoping that I will weep from gratitude and give you the information willingly in recompense for your restraint, I can assure you that it will not happen.”

“You sure we can't just chop his head off now?” Galmar muttered.

“I am,” Ulfric said, and then, to the Thalmor, “And if I were hoping for a Thalmor to weep for any reason, I would be destined for disappointment. To weep requires the capacity to feel, and to feel, one must possess a heart formed from something warmer than ice or stone.”

“I can assure you, having a heart of stone in no way hinders my ability to squeeze salty water out of my eye sockets when I feel that it would benefit me to do so.”

Ulfric tried to picture it, and failed.

“You are missing the point.”

“There was one?”

“There was. Northwatch Keep.”

The Thalmor glared at him.

“I thought I had made my position on that perfectly clear.”

“Why do you send men there?”

“Because they worship Talos.”

“Why did your Dominion decide to make that a crime?”

“Because your Emperor signed the White-Gold Concordat.”

“He is not my Emperor. Not anymore.”

“Until your rebellion succeeds, he is your Emperor even if you hate him and have renounced him ten times over.”

Ulfric prayed to Talos for patience.

“Why must the Thalmor control which gods we worship?”

“Because your Emperor signed the White-Gold Concordat.”

“What is the real reason it matters to you?”

The Thalmor's eyes glinted.

“Because your Emperor signed the White-Gold Concordat.”

Ulfric slammed his fist into the bars, an inch away from the elf's face.

“I am not a scholar, but even so I know that Talos was not the only god who once walked the earth as a mortal before he ascended to the heavens. Why was it only his worship the Thalmor chose to restrict as part of their treaty? Do your gods gain strength, as our trust in our own falters?”

“I don't know. I merely enforce the treaty. I did not design it.”

Why, Ulfric wondered, out of all the Thalmor in Skyrim had he managed to capture the _one_ elf who was perfectly happy following orders blindly instead of trying to _understand his own cause,_ and who stubbornly refused to even to pretend to shed any insight at all?

“Get the mead,” he ordered.

Galmar left.

The Thalmor's lips thinned in disgust.

Ten minutes later, Ulfric had forced enough of the stuff inside him to melt the ice in his enemy's eyes into dreamy, unfocused fondness.

“Northwatch Keep,” he prompted.

“It's cold. It's very cold.”

“It is,” Ulfric agreed. “What else can you tell me?”

“My hands're sore.”

“About Northwatch Keep.”

“It's…” the elf shook his head a bit, “… secret.”

“What is secret?”

“Northwatch.”

The elf swayed dangerously. Ulfric caught his shoulders, and gave him a short, sharp shake.

“It is, but you can tell friends your secrets. Yes?”

A puzzled light entered the elf's eyes.

“Are you m'friend?”

Talos help him, Ulfric actually felt a tiny bit guilty when he nodded.

“Oh. That's not s'bad then…”

“Exactly. Northwatch Keep. Where is it?”

“North.”

“How far north?”

“It's… far. Have y'got a map?”

Galmar brought one, and a table to put it on. He also brought a torch, the better to actually see it.

“Show me where it is,” Ulfric said.

The Thalmor obligingly put his iron-bound hand on the northern end of the Skyrim coastline.

“There.”

It would have helped more, Ulfric thought, if his hand had not taken up a full quarter of Haafingar. The elf seemed to realise this too, because he stabbed at the map a few times, clumsily, as if he were trying to use a finger to point and wasn't quite sure why he wasn't able to do so. After a moment or two he stopped, and looked at his fingers with a vague air of confusion.

Ulfric looked at Galmar.

Galmar looked at Ulfric.

“We could remove them,” Galmar suggested. “He seems harmless enough.”

“True,” Ulfric agreed. “But the Thalmor are treacherous.”

“I doubt we'll get much closer than somewhere northwest of Solitude if we don't risk it.”

“...Keep an eye on him,” Ulfric advised, and took a knife to the restraints.

They came off in short order. It was clear enough why the elf's fingers hurt. His hands were raw where the iron had chafed against them, and his wrists were bleeding from where he'd apparently done his stubborn best to rip the things straight off. A stupid move, but one Ulfric could reluctantly respect.

“Where is Northwatch Keep?”

Magic lit the elf's palms. Only long experience with battlefield healers kept Ulfric from grappling his enemy, who was staring dreamily at his rapidly healing wounds. Galmar, likewise, made no move to attack the elf, though he hefted his battleaxe warily.

“Where is Northwatch Keep?” he asked again.

The elf looked at the map.

“You know,” he said, enunciating a touch too carefully, “I don't think I feel like answering that question. _Friend_.”

Galmar swore, and swung.

The Thalmor cursed, leaping backwards, both hands raised nonthreateningly.

“By all means,” he said-- and was it Ulfric's imagination, or was he swaying slightly?-- “Kill me if you wish to, _Nord_. But--,”

“I do wish to,” Galmar said, raising his axe once more.

Ulfric put a hand on his friend's arm.

The Thalmor blinked as if trying to clear his vision.

“But... luckily for you, I have no intention of starting a fight myself that I am so obviously going to lose. I thought I made that abundantly clear the other night,” this seemed to be directed at Ulfric, “when you asked me if I would run you through.”

Either the elf was a good actor, or he genuinely had no intention of summoning his shock spells.

Ulfric steeled himself to leap sideways, and took a step towards his enemy.

“If you had the sense to deceive me into removing your restraints by pretending you were harmless, you should have had the sense to pretend to be drunk longer. I might even have sent scouts to the location you told me.”

“You would have sent Elof, and he would have been eaten by a frost troll,” Ondolemar said, with dark conviction.

Ulfric took another step towards him.

“You are drunk.”

“I am aware.”

“I am going to put the restraints back on you.”

“I am aware of that, too.”

“Then why this farce?”

“Why not? You said my pride was slipping, I am drunk, and my hands were sore. It was amusing, to see how long it would take me to make the great Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak free a Thalmor, so I could heal them,” the elf said, and there was a spark in the cloudy green eyes that was almost fey, “Who would have guessed it to be fifteen minutes?”

Ulfric was within arm's reach of the elf, now.

“How long did it take them to break you?” the green eyes bored into his, “One week? One day?”

A faint blue light shimmered about the elf, even as Ulfric's fist connected with his chin.

Ulfric's fingers bruised as if he'd struck a bench of solid oak.

Then he Shouted, and the elf staggered to his knees.

Ulfric knelt down next to him, and gripped his collar.

“If you are trying to bait me into killing you, elf, you will fail. I will question you if you will answer, I will beat you if you provoke me, and I will torture you if you make me, but until I am done with you, you will not die. I will send as many healers as I need to to restore your body so that you can withstand all of this again.”

“It's so nice to know that I hold such a... prominent place in your heart.”

Ulfric released him, and stood.

“Put the restraints back on, Galmar.”

Reluctantly, Galmar put his battleaxe away and began knotting them back on with fresh leather strips.

Ondolemar did not resist.

“I will be back,” Ulfric said, “Until I am, I suggest you think very carefully about what your plans are for the future. You have already admitted that you care if one of my men dies. You have not tried to kill me, despite the fact that I serve Talos and am winning this war. You have told me already some of the secret plans your government has for Skyrim. Ask yourself, Ondolemar, what hope it is that you are clinging to with such defiance. Because if you are hoping to flee one day while I am busy fighting a dragon and crawl back to your accursed Embassy, I doubt you will receive a warm welcome. All that will be waiting for you, from what you have told me of your government, is reeducation.”

“I am not like you,” Ondolemar said, eyes wide and very dark.

Galmar finished knotting up the right hand, and started on his left.

“You are right,” Ulfric said. “You are _nothing_ like me. If I had the power to send men to die by the hundreds with one order, with one _pen_ - _stroke_ , I would make sure that before I did, I understood and agreed with _why_ I was doing so.”

“I am sure the tens of thousands of Nords slaughtered in this senseless war you started just to crown yourself a king and defend your right to serve a once-mortal thief of a dead god's power are delighted to know that you understood and agreed with _why_ _you were_ _doing so_.”

Ulfric's eyes flashed dangerously.

“It's not too late to gag him,” Galmar said, over-tightening a knot.

“Much as I wish to, I would truly learn nothing more from him then.”

“You will learn nothing from me anyway,” the elf hissed.

“I have already learned much from you. I will learn more.”

“You will not.”

“Why do you resist?” Ulfric said, again. “It has been nine days since I caught you. No one in your Embassy has yet contacted me to negotiate for your release. You have been abandoned; tossed aside like a broken shield. Why do you defend them? Because even now, you hope for a rescue?”

Ondolemar laughed, then. It was not a happy sound.

“I would think less of them if they _did_ negotiate for a broken shield.”

“What loyalty do you truly owe them, elf?”

Something flickered in the elf's eyes, gone before Ulfric could place it.

“I grow tired of waiting for you to realise for yourself that the answer is nothing.”

“Nothing?” Ondolemar echoed, with another strange laugh. “Nothing? Answer me this, then, Jarl Ulfric: Is _nothing_ what I owe to the brothers and sisters who fought beside me during the Great Anguish? Is nothing what I owe to those who wept with me as we watched the Crystal Tower fall? I am not like you. My loyalty is not conditional upon my feeling like I matter to them. I do not _need_ to agree with their orders to muster the willpower needed to follow them. And I will never willingly abandon my own just because I feel like they have abandoned me.”

He'd started off locking gazes with the Thalmor deliberately.

At what point had things changed, that he could not look away?

“Done,” Galmar said, standing.

Ulfric wrenched himself free of the elf's spell-like hold, stepping backwards.

“Think on my words. I will return in two days to see if your answer is still the same.”


	14. Two Is Not Company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Two Is Not Company

The next prisoner to be locked inside the cells was a vampire.

The guards did not seem to know this. According to their talk, she was just a Bosmer who had been arrested for breaking and entering and trying to steal someone's ring, and had she been able to pay the bounty for that, she'd have been free. Ondolemar, however, knew better.

He had only gotten a short look as she was led to the cell next to his, but it had been enough.

He hoped she didn't have a taste for Altmer blood.

“What is your name?” the vampire asked, once the guards had left.

“That is not your concern.”

“I'm Elleth.”

“That is not _my_ concern.”

“You could be nicer,” she said. “I'm only a thief, after all. It's not like I've killed anyone.”

There was a touch of an enchantment in those words. Ondolemar narrowed his eyes.

“Try those tricks upon me, and I will sacrifice some of what little pride that I have left and scream for the guards. Do you think I am a Nord, that I do not know the implications of glowing eyes, bruised eye sockets, and elongated incisors when I see them?”

There was a slight pause.

“You're no fun,” she said, and subsided.

Ondolemar spent most of the next eight hours praying that she did not have a lockpick.

“I'm hungry,” she said, on the second day.

“How long are you in for?” Ondolemar said.

“Three days.”

Only three days? Well, if the Bosmer was lucky, she might make it without being actively sliced apart, assuming she'd fed before being brought in here, and kept her eyes downcast.

“I wonder what Altmer blood tastes like.”

“Terrible.”

“You'd know, would you?”

“I would. I have sucked poison out of my wounds more than once.”

“I'm sure you're doing yourself an injustice, old mer. Do you want me to check for you?”

“No. And I am not old.”

“Young mer, then.”

“You may call me Thalmor or Justiciar if you must call me anything at all.”

“But they're so impersonal. It would be like you calling me 'vampire' or 'Bosmer'.”

“Do you think I do not?”

"You don't out loud."

"Out loud, I do not dignify you with anything better than 'you' at all."

“True enough, I suppose. Do you want to put your arm outside the bars as far as you can to the left?”

Ondolemar's arm was half-way there before he realised just what he was doing, and snapped it back in to his chest. Shivering slightly-- it was the cold, he told himself-- he wrapped himself securely inside his bear pelt, and sat on the corners.

“Guards!” he called. “Guards!”

“Don't do that,” the vampire said, “I'm sorry, it was-- I haven't eaten for three days, and I was hungry. They'll kill me if they know what I am. You know what Nords are.”

Ondolemar did. Nords being Nords was probably the reason why no one was coming when an Altmer called for them. Auri-El help him if the vampire did get her teeth into him, if this was how unresponsive they were going to be in a crisis.

“I do know what they are. So, clearly, do you. Which is why if you intended to break into their houses, you should have made sure you could pay their fines if you were caught. Vampires are supposed to be intelligent.”

“I'm intelligent. I'm just not rich. Finding someone who's happy to barter with a vampire isn't easy, and joining a group of vampires just means you have to give all the wealth you stumble across to the master vampire owning the place. We can't all of us be Thalmor with connections and enough supplies to make sure everyone who volunteered to investigate strange noises in nearby caves in High Rock had potions that could cure diseases on them. I didn't even steal anything, when they arrested me. I thought the mill was empty, until the s'wit who owned the place said I was trying to raid her things.”

“… I will give you one more chance, since you are a Bosmer. Try to sink your teeth into me or enchant me again, and I will not be merciful.”

“I wouldn't expect you to be,” the vampire said.

Ondolemar suspected that she was lying.

Towards evening, she began pacing restlessly.

“The gaps between these bars are terribly big, don't you think? Not the doors, but next to them.”

“I do not think so at all.”

“Well, I do.”

“The guards will be down with dinner soon. Ulfric Stormcloak will also, at some point, be arriving with an able bodyguard to ask me if I have reconsidered not sacrificing my place in the afterlife and all my future promotions for the privilege of getting my head cut off a bit later than originally scheduled. If you are thinking of trying to slip through the bars, I would advise that you restrain yourself until after they have been and gone.”

“That's fair, I suppose. I hate Nords.”

“I sympathise. I am not sure why you came to Skyrim, however, if you feel that way.”

“I heard there's a mage in Morthal with a cure for vampirism.”

Something worth reporting, if he lived.

“Who is he?”

“Falion.”

Ondolemar made a mental note of the name.

The vampire kept pacing.

“You smell like blood.”

“Are you sure you are not confusing me with the box of torture implements?”

“They smell like Nord blood. You don't.”

“Yes, well, it is not my fault that Nords like beating me, and do not believe in bathing.”

“I wouldn't worry too much. You smell nice.”

Ondolemar shuffled backwards a bit from the bars.

“Scared?”

“Cautious.”

“Smart, I suppose. Are you sure these guards of yours are actually coming?”

“I am.”

She sighed deeply.

Her steps were louder, now. Frustrated.

Ondolemar hoped Ulfric came soon.

“Do you want to know how I was infected?”

“Not particularly.”

“It doesn't surprise you that I'm looking for a cure?”

“Since I can think of few fates worse than being hidden from Auri-El's grace for the rest of your undead existence and belonging to a Daedra Prince when you finally do die, no. It does not.”

“You're very religious, aren't you? Actually, no. That's not why I'm looking.”

Ondolemar was silent.

“I'm looking because I have a son. I'd like to see him again without trying to kill him. If I didn't, I'm not sure I would be trying this hard. It's nice, being powerful. I used to be so terrified whenever I saw a bear sleeping by the roadside. Now, I just drink its blood if I'm thirsty and sneak past if I'm not.”

“How nice for you.”

“Mm.”

“… How old is he?”

Her voice softened, almost fond.

“Forty two, come Frost Fall. I'm hoping to make it back before his birthday.”

A few minutes later, dinner arrived.

Ondolemar half expected to hear the shouts of startled realisation that would have signaled the guards realising just what they'd stuck in the cell next door to him, but they did not come. The Bosmer was lucky Nords were not a perceptive race. Had it been the Embassy who'd caught her…

The guards left.

Ondolemar unwrapped himself enough to drain the water bowl.

A shift in the light in front of his cell made him stiffen, looking up.

The vampire stood watching him as he himself might have watched a particularly fat calf.

Ondolemar's pulse quickened. Sweat pricked at his palms.

He did his best to ignore them.

“I should mention, to Ulfric, that the bars need to be made slightly narrower,” he said, calmly.

“You should,” she agreed. “It's clearly a flaw in this prison's design.”

She stretched a hand through the bars.

“Be a dear and give me your arm. Don't make me crawl through.”

“I could scream.”

“I could put a hand over your mouth before you did. The guards here don't seem quick to help you.”

“You could have eaten _their_ blood.”

“They'd kill me. There's a lot of them. You can't, since there's just one of you. In fact, since you're only going to be executed anyway, I doubt anyone would even bother investigating if they found you dead. Not that I want to kill you, since you asked how old my son was. I just want a little bit of blood, that's all. Just a sip. But sometimes I forget that, when I'm drinking.”

Ondolemar swallowed dryly.

He should be calling the guards. Why wasn't he?

“You're really going to make me crawl through?”

Her eyes were entreating; crimson lit by pinpricks of gold.

Ondolemar wrenched his gaze from them before he could be snared.

“I would very much prefer it if you did nothing of the sort.”

“I know. But it's three days since I ate last. Even they won't be able to miss what I am soon.”

A moment later, she was on her stomach. In seconds, she'd slipped through the gap.

Ondolemar stood, backing away.

The wall loomed behind him.

The vampire smiled.

Ondolemar retreated another step.

The wall pressed against his back, solid and cold.

“We could negotiate,” Ondolemar tried.

“How does this sound?” the vampire said. “Resist, and I will kill you.”

“It sounds like a very poor deal,” Ondolemar said, honestly.

“I know. I'll try to make it quick.”

One of her hands gripped his shoulder. The other gripped his chin, tilting his head to one side with a strength that was, frankly, unfair. Ondolemar attempted to wrench himself free-- to at least push the Bosmer back to arm's length or--

Mercilessly, his head was slammed against the stone wall, once… twice… three times…

“I think I remember telling you you'd die if you resisted.”

“I would...” Ondolemar managed, dizzily, “Prefer that to an undead existence like your own.”

“I can respect that, but you're overreacting,” she said, and disoriented as he was, he could see the vampire's glowing eyes were following the blood that was now trickling down from his temple down his cheek. “Just make sure you get a potion that cures diseases within three days, and you'll be fine. Or, failing that, chew on some hawk feathers. Or follow me, and go see Falion. If you live, that is.”

Her lips were an inch away from his throat.

He could not move.

“What is his name?”

Her teeth paused.

“Who's name?”

“Your son.”

The hold about his throat tightened.

“Sargoth.”

“He… must miss you.”

“He does. I write to my brother, sometimes.”

The hold tightened again.

Black spots danced before him.

“Now stop distracting me.”

There was, in the end, no explosion of pain in his throat.

Just two pinpricks, sharp as needles, followed by numbing darkness as his life was drained away.

Ondolemar closed his eyes, and pictured the sun. If he had to die, his last thoughts would be of Auri-El, not of his golden, pure, Altmer blood being sucked from him by this Bosmer vampire whose sole wish was to live again and see a child likely too young to remember, once a century or two had passed, that she'd ever existed.

* * *

 

Ulfric visited exactly two minutes shy of midnight.

He had considered not coming.

He'd considered telling himself that the news that Imperial scouts had been sighted was sufficient justification for forgetting to come back down here. The war took precedence over visiting Thalmor captives who could so deftly twist the knife of his worst memories, regardless of whether or not one had given one's word to see them again to collect an answer that one knew already would not have changed.

Ultimately, however, Ulfric was not a coward, and he did not like breaking his word, and so he had come.

The Thalmor was sleeping, when Ulfric arrived.

So was the other prisoner-- a wood elf, who unlike the Thalmor had been sensible enough to sleep curled up into her pile of straw. A thief, Cahlad had said. A traveler from High Rock, who'd be out tomorrow. She was of little importance, but she was a wood elf, and so she could not be trusted. If she showed signs of stirring, she'd have to be removed to the courtyard while the interrogation went on.

Ulfric gave the Thalmor a moment or two to stir on his own.

Nothing happened.

“Wake up,” Galmar said, from beside him.

Had the high elf been sleeping in his usual position, Ulfric might have nudged him awake with a boot. Unfortunately, the high elf was sleeping out of reach, against the far wall.

“Open the cell,” Ulfric commanded.

Cahlad did.

Ulfric entered the cell.

Galmar and Cahlad remained outside.

“Wake up,” Ulfric said, when he was but a foot away.

The Thalmor did not respond. This close, the elf's skin had an unhealthy, waxy sheen. His head was propped awkwardly against the wall behind him, and a trail of something dark was smeared down his cheek that seemed to be from a cut buried somewhere in the dark fuzz of his regrowing hair. A sudden, unwelcome suspicion seized Ulfric.

He reached for the elf's throat, and felt for his pulse.

It beat, but faintly. Not dead, then.

Had he tried for suicide? Or…

“Has anyone been down here, to visit the elf?” Ulfric demanded.

“No,” Cahlad said. “He did call for the guards around lunch time, Hrodd said, but it was our lunch break, so…” the Nord trailed off, before adding, “He seemed okay at dinner.”

“Get a bucket of water. Cold water,” Ulfric commanded, standing. “And bring a torch.”

Since the elf was not dead, Ulfric would know what had happened when he woke him. It could not be illness. The elf had been well enough two days ago.

Cahlad darted off to fetch them. The water arrived first.

Ulfric upended the bucket on the Thalmor.

A crude measure, but it had the desired effect. The Thalmor's eyes snapped open, wide and disoriented and… was that fear, or just something that looked a lot like it? Ulfric stepped backwards as Ondolemar pitched forward onto his hands, gagging.

“Think he's faking it?” Galmar said, in a low voice.

“Talos knows,” Ulfric said.

After last time, he'd not put it past the elf.

His conviction lasted exactly as long as it took for the torch to arrive.

Held aloft, the hand-shaped bruises about the Thalmor's throat were thrown into sharp relief. Instinctively, the high elf's arm snapped up to cover them. Ulfric caught it midway. The Thalmor was shaking. Not from the cold and not, Ulfric thought, from fear or even from rage, but the sort of involuntary spasms that he'd seen in men who'd held heavy weights above their heads for hours, and had finally dropped them. The sort of tremors he'd seen in men, too, who'd had their wounds stitched up by men too unskilled in magic to do more to ensure they didn't bleed out on the snow.

“Bring the torch closer,” Ulfric ordered.

Galmar, obediently, did.

“Stop touching me.”

“Do not presume to tell me what to do, Thalmor.”

Ulfric had been planning to find out what sized hand had strangled the elf, to better decide if this was self-inflicted, or some assassination attempt made by the high elf's accursed Embassy. What he found was two round, matching scabs, an inch apart, situated directly above the high elf's jugular.

Ulfric stiffened, meeting his enemy's eyes, seeking confirmation.

They burned with mingled humiliation, rage, and fear.

Rage, Ulfric thought, at what had happened.

Fear, because the elf did not know if he would become a monster.

Humiliation, because the cure he needed to avoid it could only be given by an enemy he hated.

Abruptly, Ulfric released him, and stood.

“Who did this to you?”

“Is… is he awake?” the wood elf said, from the cell next door.

She sounded worried for him, and immediately, Ondolemar froze. Was he worried about the woman?

“See if she was attacked too,” Ulfric commanded.

The Thalmor managed to struggle onto his knees.

“You… would do better…” he rasped, “To--,”

“I wasn't,” the wood elf said, cutting him off, “He sacrificed his life for mine.”

She sounded traumatised. The Thalmor pressed his lips into a thin line, eyes icy.

“Bring her in here,” Ulfric commanded.

Cahlad did. A thin thing, with a gray cast to her skin and downcast eyes, clearly terrified.

“You do not need to be afraid,” Ulfric said. “Monstrous as the Thalmor are, vampires are worse. An assault such as this is not something I will allow in my dungeons. Speak plainly, since he seems mute. How did he sacrifice himself to save you? What did the vampire look like?”

“He… the vampire was like a shadow. I… I don't know when he got there. His eyes were like the sun. I could not scream. He...” she pointed with one shaking finger, “Could not either. But the vampire asked which of us he should feed on. I… I asked him to spare me, for the sake of my son waiting for me back in High Rock. The Thalmor… I don't know his name, but he said… he said he was to die anyway, so the vampire should choose him.”

“I somehow… do not remember those being my words,” the Thalmor said.

“Those were your words.”

"Those... were my words," Ondolemar echoed, before scraping his hands across his eyes, as if trying to soothe a bad headache.

An unwelcome suspicion seized Ulfric.

No visitors meant the elf's only company had been... her?

“Bring a healer,” Ulfric said, to Cahlad. “I want both of them checked.”

“Why me? I wasn't attacked. I told you. The vampire-- I wasn't touched.”

She sounded genuinely panicked. If his suspicion that she was a vampire was correct, she had reason to be. She was also, likely, a lot stronger than she looked, which made remaining here with only two guards a bad idea.

“Additionally, summon all the guards on duty today, Cahlad,” Ulfric ordered, “I will see if any of them reported seeing anything strange. One of them must have noticed something odd. That a vampire could sneak into the heart of my palace is not acceptable.”

“Yes, Jarl Ulfric,” Cahlad said, and disappeared upstairs.

The wood elf tensed.

“You seem to be very keen on denying your heroism,” Ulfric said, playing for time, and watching both her and the Thalmor. “Are you worried I will think her a Thalmor too, if you admit that you defended her? You need not be. Impossible though the fact might seem to you, that a soldier's instinct would be to defend a civilian woman when threatened is not one I find difficult to grasp.”

“I am… flattered that you hold my morals in such… high esteem.”

The wood elf relaxed slightly.

“Why did the vampire not kill you?”

“I imagine… because it did not… like the taste of me.”

“If the rest of you is as poisonous as your tongue, I believe you.”

The high elf's lips twitched slightly.

“Did the vampire say anything?” Galmar said, to the wood elf.

“I… he said that he was sorry, and that he needed to reach a wizard somewhere who might have a cure for the disease. That he had family, and so he needed to live.”

“Mad beast.”

“That's just what I overheard.”

“Anything else?” Galmar said.

Behind Ulfric, the Thalmor struggled to his feet, using the wall as a crutch.

“No. That's all I remember.”

“Then take her back to her cell,” Ulfric ordered.

“I'm frightened. What if the vampire comes back? You'll release me tomorrow anyway. Can't I go now? My bounty was only forty gold pieces.”

“She won't find you,” Ulfric said, impatiently.

There was a slight pause.

“She?” the wood elf echoed, too lightly.

Immediately, three things happened.

Ulfric drew his sword, the vampire stepped back, crouching, lightning dancing at her fingertips, and Galmar hefted his battleaxe.

“I really was hoping to not have to do this," the vampire said, plaintively, "All I wanted was to make it to Morthal. Was that too much to ask? He said you were going to cut his head off. Does it matter that I drank his blood? It wasn't like I killed him.”

“It matters. He is _my_ prisoner, not _your_ cattle. That I will kill him eventually does not change that fact. And you are chasing a myth, monster,” Ulfric said, “While you do, how many of my people will you turn into creatures like you?”

Galmar swung first. The vampire moved lightning fast, dodging the deadly blows, and blasted a bolt of lightning at his chest. Ulfric Shouted even as she did so, driving her to her knees long enough to land a blow across her side.

“But of course, it is my people, not the wood elves or the Bretons of High Rock, who will bear the brunt of it. Why concern yourself if you only spread your curse throughout my homeland?”

The Thalmor spoke then, from behind him.

“In all fairness, your homeland is… not so devoid of vampires. Releasing one more into the wilderness will not significantly affect the odds of someone getting infected.”

"Exactly," the vampire said.

Ulfric's temper flared.

He swung harder at the vampire.

"Who's side are you on, elf?"

"Mine. And at the moment, yours."

Ulfric dodged another bolt of lightning. It was a dangerous business. When they'd battered her enough, she'd doubtless switch from lightning to absorbing their health. It was possible, when that happened, they'd all be in need of a healer. Still, Ulfric would not back down from a fight, though he did hope his men would be down soon to reinforce him.

“And just how many vampire lairs do I have in my homeland?”

“More than a dozen.”

“Where?”

“That information is classified. Rest assured, however… that they are close enough to the towns and to the roads to ensure that they are not short of thralls or fledgelings.”

“That information makes me feel neither restful nor assured.”

Galmar pressed the assault. Ulfric continued Shouting and swinging by turns.

Soon, she was cornered and had switched to her vile absorption spells.

Ulfric felt his strength being pulled from him.

He would, at this rate, last perhaps thirty seconds.

Damned vampires.

He swung harder.

A furious bellow from behind him told him the guards had arrived. First five, then ten, twenty…

Ten minutes and one dead vampire later, Ulfric visited the shrine of Talos with his men, and asked Talos to purge from him whatever taint the vampire had left in his flesh. Talos obliged; further proof, if any were needed, that he was as real as the rest of the Divines.

The vampire's body was carted off to be burned.

“I am tempted,” Ulfric said, when he returned to the Thalmor's cell, “To make you pray at Talos' altar yourself for a cure to your ailment.”

The high elf paced. He did not respond.

“I wonder who you would forsake first. Your god, or your Dominion?”

“I need not forsake either. I cannot have been infected. Auri-El would not suffer one of his children to turn into a walking leech hidden from his sight for eternity.”

The words were proud, but there was fear beneath them.

Ulfric bent, and put a potion on the ground in front of the cell.

The Thalmor tracked the movement. Then he looked at Ulfric, almost... unsure.

Ulfric held his gaze.

“… That potion will cure diseases?” the high elf asked, after a stiff silence.

“It will.”

Disbelief flickered in the elf's eyes.

“Luckily for you, I do not believe in forcing others to worship the gods that I want them to, just because I know that mine are real and do not like theirs, or them.”

“Why?”

“Why do I not like you? I'm sure you can think of a reason, if you try hard enough.”

The elf's eyes flashed.

“Think of it as your god's intervention,” Ulfric said, “Who knows? Perhaps he and Talos drink together in Aetherius or Sovngarde, and mourn how far your kind have fallen together.”

“That is heresy.”

“Perhaps it is. I am not a scholar.”

Abruptly, the Thalmor stooped, and picked up the potion. He did not drink it. Just… inspected it. Turned it, absently. Pride, Ulfric thought, was what kept him still. So had Ulfric stood still, sometimes, after days without food when Elenwen finally set it before him.

“Drink, elf. I wish to strangle you and strike you freely, without needing to be sure that I visit a shrine every time I do, with every guard I touch until then, to make sure we are not infected. I also have no wish to house a vampire fledgeling in my prison three days hence. Once was more than enough for me.”

“... I still hate you.”

“Your sentiments are returned.”

The Thalmor hesitated a moment longer. Then he downed the potion.

“Now,” Ulfric said, righting an upturned stool, and sitting down, “About those classified locations of the vampire lairs of Skyrim...”

"Go to Oblivion," the Thalmor said.

Somehow, though, his words lacked their usual venom.


	15. One, Two, Three (Turn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## One, Two, Three (Turn)

Ondolemar had-- he could acknowledge it-- been shaken.

The cause of it was not the vampire. It was not even the fact that he'd nearly died, and had now less than a tenth of his blood left.

No. The cause of it was sitting complacently on the stool outside his cell, waiting to be told where vampires nested these days in Skyrim.

 _Go to Oblivion,_ he'd said.

The words had been ignored like a puff of unwanted wind.

That Ulfric dreamed of having a broken Thalmor informant in his cells one day, not a vampire who craved blood like an addict craved skooma, had been a plausible reason for why his enemy had given him the means to remove any possible infection from the attack. Practicality, not mercy, had guided Ulfric's hand. Intellectually, Ondolemar knew this. Thus, he also knew, intellectually, that there was no need to feel grateful. There was no reason to feel grateful either that his enemy had given it freely instead of humiliating him first.

It was unfortunate that he seemed to.

It was, he suspected, a side-effect of the vampire's enchantments. That was the only possible reason a seasoned Thalmor Justiciar would be feeling indebted to his Nordic would-be executioner for gifting him with a potion worth less than eighty gold pieces. Unfortunately, merely knowing this was not making the irrational feeling disappear.

And so, to distract himself, Ondolemar paced. An awkward occupation in this tiny cell, but thinking about what length of step he needed to take to make sure he could squeeze in three steps, not two, before he needed to turn, was uninteresting, tedious and, most importantly, safe.

“Does your government approve of vampires existing in Skyrim?” Ulfric said, when five minutes had passed.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“The Dominion views them much as we view the Forsworn."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"And that is?"

"Undesirable and potentially problematic, but ultimately, since drinking blood and worshiping Daedra were not prohibited by the White-Gold Concordat, the Empire's problem and the Vigilantes of Stendarr's, not ours. At least while Skyrim remains in human hands.”

"Which," Ulfric said, eyes smoldering, "It will always do."

Ondolemar allowed his lips to curl into a sneer. He did not bother replying.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Do you want them stamped out, elf?”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“My opinions are irrelevant.”

“They are not to me."

"Well then, in my _opinion,_ what weakens Skyrim is good for the Dominion. Does that answer you?"

"You would do nothing to stop their threat, even after feeling their fangs fasten about your own neck?"

"I am untraumatised, if that is what you mean. She is not the first vampire to attack me."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You do not mind monsters wandering the land freely who see you as nothing more than food?”

"That she viewed me as food was not the problem; It was not pleasant, but when one has been posted to Valenwood a few dozen times, and has completed missions with Bosmeri in almost every province in Tamriel, one becomes used to being seen as edible by her kind, vampire or no. The problem was that she acted on it, and dared to infect me."

Ulfric's face twisted, disgusted. Ondolemar sympathised.

After a moment or two, the Nord said:

"You admit, then, that your god allowed you to be infected?"

"He did not. His intervention, as you said, was yourself. When I am clinging to a branch against a flood in the Black Marsh and a stranger comes with a raft to rescue me, I do not turn him aside and say, 'Auri-El would not let me perish, so I do not need you.' I am not a fool."

"I am not sure that I believe you, elf. Someone who was not a fool would have called for aid when being attacked by a vampire, when they knew aid was but one room away."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Why did you not do so?"

"... I believe I pitied her, at the time. Her enchantments were somewhat more potent than your staff of calming."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Do they bind you still?" Ulfric said, evenly.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Not intellectually."

"But..." a vague gesture, by someone too unskilled in magic to express himself more eloquently.

"Are you curious as to my emotional well-being, Jarl Ulfric? The war must truly be at a standstill if you have this much time to waste on me."

"I do not consider this to be wasting my time."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"If you are hoping to extrapolate the character of the average Thalmor from a close study of me--," Ondolemar started.

"I am not."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"It does not matter what my heart has been enchanted to feel. Fortunately for you, and for my dignity, I am not ruled by emotion. I have never been. Thus, just as I did not throw myself between your blades and the vampire, and offer to give her my blood freely until she reached Morthal out of pity for her plight, I am unlikely to try to hug you for fulfilling Auri-El's will, and helping me."

Humiliating, actually, to have said that aloud. Ondolemar swiftened his steps.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"I had not realised my position was so dire, elf."

"It will not be for long. Since she is dead, I am confident that within the hour, such irrational urges will vanish."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Your willpower leaves much to be desired, for a high elf,” Ulfric said, at last.

“It does, doesn't it?" Ondolemar agreed, pleasantly, "How kind of you to rub it in, just in case I had not realised that fact on my own. It is a pity my father is dead. Were he alive, you could have joined him in drink and lamented the many ways in which I failed to uphold the vaunted reputation of Altmer everywhere together.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Did your government kill him?”

"You have a very low opinion of the Dominion, don't you?"

"Did they?"

“No," Ondolemar said, shortly.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Would you have, had they demanded it of you?"

"Would you kill Galmar, if your war demanded it of you?"

Ulfric's eyes flashed dangerously.

"It does not do to dwell on could-have-been's, does it?" Ondolemar said. "There are so many, after all, whom we  _could_ have killed."

"I would not cut down a Nord closer to me than a brother. There would be a way to avoid it. If there was none, I would make one."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Quaint."

"But you... would you even look _once_ for a way to avoid murdering your own blood?"

"If Auri-El directly interceded on their behalf, perhaps."

"I wonder if you would listen, even if he did."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"I would listen. He is difficult to ignore."

"Is he? It is hard to believe that a god that both you and the refugees fleeing from your oppression served did not ask you to spare even one high elf dissident during the Night of Green Fire."

His steps faltered. Stilled.

Ondolemar's voice, when he spoke, was flat.

“I was not stationed in Hammerfell at the time.”

“You have never murdered any high elves who sought to flee your government's oppression?”

Uninvited, unwanted, faces swam before him.

Kanawe, whose answers he'd stolen in their academy years, and who'd begged Auri-El for mercy on his knees in a dead-end back-alley even as Ondolemar's ice-spike had pierced his chest. Hidhwel, once his teacher, who'd shouted that if the Dominion was Auri-El's will she'd rather serve Akatosh, and had fallen in a hail of arrows and burning flame…

There were more faces. More names.

Ondolemar thrust them aside.

His orders had been clear.

He would not regret the past. To do so was to enslave oneself to time.

He would not regret the lives he had taken. To do so was to enslave oneself to mortality.

The Dominion's teachings were clear.

The dissidents who'd died stood now with Auri-El, free at last of Mundus, lamenting their own blindness and cheering the Dominion on.

He knew this. He'd been  _taught_  this.

Unbidden, Ulfric's words returned to him.

_I wonder who you would forsake first. Your god, or your Dominion?_

Ondolemar thrust that thought from him, too.

There was no choosing. Auri-El believed in the Dominion. The Dominion believed in Auri-El.

If Auri-El had disapproved of the Thalmor's beliefs or disagreed with their goals, he would have made his objections known centuries ago. He would not have allowed Ondolemar to believe that he'd been _right_ to remove traitors who clung to a crippled existence upon a crippled plane, bending their knees to a decaying Empire too weak to fight for what it claimed to believe in. Auri-El would have sent him some sign _before_ he died if none of it pleased him at all.

Wouldn't he?

Ondolemar wished, fleetingly, that he'd bothered reading the religious texts on his distant ancestor back in Alinor.

He wished, too, that this prison had chinks in it to let in the sunlight.

Mostly, he wished to stop thinking at all.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"I wonder how many--,"

“Mara's Eye Pond,” Ondolemar said, abruptly.

“... I know it. What of it?”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“There is a lair close to it.”

“Where?" Ulfric demanded, successfully distracted.

Ondolemar hesitated. Shrugged.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I do not know. The scout, according to his report, valued his life above obtaining a more precise location. I advise learning from his wisdom, and refraining from investigating it too closely yourself. I want the stalemate to last. I doubt this war would keep going at all if you died.”

“Your concern is misplaced, elf. It is Talos' cause that the true Nords of Skyrim stand for, not me.”

“And yet not one true Nord lifted a blade in his defense until you led them.”

Ulfric was silent.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

An icy draft assailed Ondolemar from some hidden crack in the prison walls. He shivered, and was suddenly, irrationally furious with the cold dungeons and his freezing, drenched clothes. Tonight, he would retrieve his torture implement from the straw, remove his restraints and cast a warming spell. Then he would see how long he could get away with hiding his hands inside his bearskin blanket before the soldiers or Ulfric realised he was free and knotted them on again. Before he--

His thoughts were wandering.

Ruthlessly, he curbed them.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You seem to have reversed your stance on what is good for your Dominion, elf.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I have. After careful consideration, I decided that instead of vampires weakening Skyrim by feasting on your peasants, Skyrim would be more weakened if you sent soldiers I did not care about to die in that lair.”

“I have no intention of sending any of my men to die there, whether you care about them or not. I will write to the Vigilantes of Stendarr and alert them of the problem, and make sure any soldiers of mine patrolling that area carry potions capable of curing diseases.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Clever,” Ondolemar allowed. “And expedient.”

“And the other eleven locations?”

“Are unlikely to drain your resources any more than that one, so I will not tell you.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I might consider pointing them out for you, however, if you brought me a map and removed my restraints...”

“That trick will not serve you twice, elf.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“A pity.”

“I am sure you think so.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Where is your bodyguard?”

“He is within earshot, and occupied with matters that do not concern you.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"You are not yet tired, Jarl Ulfric?”

“Will I leave you alone, you mean? Not yet. I still have questions I want answered. You seem unusually willing today to give them.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You are not worried that, alone as you are, I might escape somehow and hold you hostage?”

“I am not. I know my own strength, and it is beyond yours even when you are not half dead and shaking like a dead leaf. You have also said that you do not want me to die yet, so any threats you made would be somewhat lacking in their effectiveness.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You would trust the word of a Thalmor?”

“I trust that your terror of your government's wrath outstrips your terror of my dungeons.”

_One. Two. Three._

“An inaccurate assessment.”

_Turn._

“Say, rather, that my  _respect_  for my government outweighs my desire to escape the boredom of these cells.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“If today was boring for you, you make me wonder what it takes to interest one of your kind.”

A bubble of amusement formed. Shattered.

Ondolemar paced in silence for perhaps ten minutes.

“Why are you doing this?” he said, at last.

“Doing what, elf?”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Not hitting me. Not strangling me. Not threatening me.”

“Because it seems to confuse you.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Does it?”

“It does. I have watched you, these past days. You seem conditioned to endure pain. When I threaten you, you goad me until I strike you and take it as a victory. You behave like someone to whom the concept of dealing with others outside the boundaries of respect, loyalty, fear or brutality is too foreign to comprehend… and yet, when you encounter such a thing, you try, badly, to mimic it. It raises interesting questions about your government, and your upbringing.”

“It does, does it?”

“Yes.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I can assure you, my upbringing was not abnormal. I was a spoiled, arrogant, and brilliant child. I suffered no hardships. I was gifted in magic, and impatient of the shackles that bound Alinor to a crumbling Empire far too weak to rule us. I was also, obviously, immeasurably wealthy, surrounded by friends, and the apple of my parent's eyes.”

“You are a poor liar, elf.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Am I?”

“Speak honestly. When was the last time you spoke to someone else without calculating what you needed to do to avoid being hurt, or how best to hurt them? When was the last time your conversation did not involve calculating profits and losses?”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I do not see why I need to speak honestly. There is no power for you in knowing.”

“Call it curiosity, if you will. Since there is no power in me knowing, I doubt any regulation forbids you from sharing it.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I will assuage your curiosity if you will give me a dry set of clothes and two minutes of privacy, with my restraints off, to change into them.”

“You demand much for useless information.”

“Then do not accept my bargain.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“A typical day in my childhood, when I was five or six years old," Ulfric said, then, "Involved rising at dawn and raiding the kitchens before the cook could beat me. It involved avoiding my tutors and escaping to the streets to slay imaginary monsters with any child who would aid me in that quest, and falling asleep by the hearth listening to my mother and father tell tales of the great heroes of old.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You've matured very little in the handful of decades you have added to your name since then.”

“Perhaps. I suspect more than one of my old masters would agree with your words.”

“They have my sympathy.”

“They would not care to receive it.”

“They wound me.”

“I'm sure, elf, that you will survive the slight somehow.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“... What is it, exactly, that you hope to gain by confusing me?”

“Do you think me a fool, that I would tell you?”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“You are a Nord. I had some hope you might be.”

“Well, I am not. You are a Thalmor. If I told you, all that would happen would be that you did your best to see that I did not get it.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“True.”

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“Your pacing is wearying, elf. I am not used to seeing you so restless.”

“Nor am I used to nearly joining the ranks of the undead. If my pacing tires you, then leave me.”

Ulfric did not stand.

"Would you have slain your own father, had your government demanded it?"

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"Will you kill Legate Rikke, if you take Solitude?"

A keener thrust than Galmar, going by the look in Ulfric's stormy eyes.

Ulfric did not reply.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"I am leaving," Ulfric said, after perhaps fifteen minutes, "If, by chance, another vampire is imprisoned next to you, consider crushing whatever pity it tries to charm into you, and alert my men beforeyou are attacked. It would be inconvenient for me if you died before I had finished with you."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

“I will consider it. In turn, you should consider making the gaps between the bars smaller than a square foot in width, so vampires cannot walk straight through them.”

"Is that what she did?" Ulfric frowned.

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"She crawled, rather than walked. It is a flaw in this prison's design. You should fix it, before I do the same."

"If you can do the same, elf, why haven't you?"

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

"... I will not forget the question, elf," Ulfric said, at last. "When I return, I expect an answer."

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

_One. Two. Three._

_Turn._

And then, mercifully, Ulfric was gone.

Ondolemar retreated to the back of his cell. The restraints were not so hard to remove. The hook, designed for ripping flesh, ripped leather just as well when held tightly between his knees. He freed but one hand; he needed at least one to look convincing, if Ulfric or his men looked too closely. A few warming spells later, and his shivering was gone. A few healing spells, and his lost blood returned to him.

Finally, exhausted, irritable, and subject to a stubborn enchantment that refused, so far, to fade, Ondolemar slept.

When he did, he dreamed that he stood before the statue of Auri-El in an unfamiliar chapel. 

Nameless Altmeri knelt, singing praises, but they sung it in no language that he spoke or knew.  An unspeakable sense of wrongness filled him.  Stepping closer, he saw that the statue's crystal hands had been severed at the wrists, and where the jeweled eyes should have shone, timeless and inviolate, were two empty, gaping holes.


	16. A (Not So) Polite Exchange of Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A (Not So) Polite Exchange of Letters

Elenwen was a competent mer. Most would have agreed that she was terrifyingly so.

It was unfortunate that the Nord who was currently wringing his hands in front of her desk, leaking dirt onto the floor of her solar and sniveling that he was Gissur's beneficiary and Rulindil hadn't paid his cousin the one thousand gold pieces he owed him for his role in capturing Etienne Rarnis, did not seem to be aware of that.

Had Rulindil not been in a coma from which it was questionable that he would ever emerge, Elenwen might have had a gentle word with him about making sure that any of the filthy beggars he used so frequently as informants did not have free access to the Thalmor Embassy-- or her. It would have been accompanied by an offer, equally gentle, to experience the 'expertise' he so often asked her to demonstrate firsthand, should he see fit to ignore this advice. Unfortunately, Rulindil _was_ in a coma, and so Elenwen called for the guard to deal with the matter and continued reading through her letters, files, and reports.

Five minutes later, the guard came; a young thing, scarcely one hundred.

Elenwen remained silent just long enough to make him shift uneasily.

“I am sorry, First Emissary. I don't know how he got in. Your orders, First Emissary?”

The Nord's whining rose several octaves. Why, she did not know. His words were unworthy of being heard; thus, Elenwen was not listening.

“The Thalmor," she said, cutting it off, "reward those wise enough to recognise their true leaders. We also pay our debts. Pay him what he is owed, and more if he will continue acting as an informant in his cousin's place. I trust that you do not require more detailed instruction in how to deal with such menial matters, Captain Valnar?”

“Yes, First Emissary. No, First Emissary.”

Captain Valnar was sweating.

Elenwen let him squirm for a moment longer, before smiling kindly.

“Take him, and leave me.”

“Yes, First Emissary.”

The whining departed.

The stench lingered. She'd need to order the servants to scrub the floor where he'd stood.

That could wait, though, until after this paperwork was completed.

Some of it was useless; tired facts reported ten times over. Some of it was so tied up in suppositions that it was difficult to work out what the agent or spy in question had actually observed, and what they'd merely imagined. And then there were those like J'datharr, stationed outside Windhelm, who dealt in cold, terse facts.

His target wasn't dead-- Unfortunate, that. Perhaps the next report would be more satisfactory-- But J'datharr also reported that there was talk among the Dunmer of a bald Thalmor Justiciar currently residing in Windhelm's dungeons. So, dear Ondolemar had managed to survive Markarth, had he? Something would have to be done about that. His loyalty to the Dominion was admirable, but he had a loose tongue and an unfortunate tendency to regard those who did him favors with genuine warmth, regardless of their race. He'd need to be rescued or terminated, preferably sooner rather than later.

Elenwen moved on. And-- ah. Now that, that was actually interesting.

It seemed, from missives intercepted from a courier-- an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a frost troll and a shrine of Talos near White River Valley; naturally, the Thalmor did not police political matters in Skyrim-- that Tullius was being pressured by the Dragonborn to agree to a truce with the rebels. Ulfric-- so said the missive-- would be pressured for the same, if Tullius would agree to meet with him.

It was not undesirable.

A cold war suited the Thalmor just as well as an open blaze. In fact, given how much land Tullius seemed to be losing these days, a truce was all but required for the Thalmor presence to remain in Skyrim. And Elenwen did want it to remain. Talos needed to be stamped out, but even if he had not, Elenwen enjoyed her job. Beneath the stubborn, brittle shell of pride that encased them, Nords were as vulnerable as wolf pups lying belly-up before a Falmer. It was amusing to remind them of this truth. Imperials lacked such pride, but they were clever enough to see the steel inside the silken glove that the Dominion had about their throats. To remind them that this hand could tighten at any point, if they dreamed of breaking free, was her duty.

Diplomacy and tact were needed, however.

It would not do for this to become genuine peace.

Elenwen sharpened her quill expertly with an elven dagger, and dipped it into the inkwell.

Then, in crisp, elegant strokes, she wrote.

_To General Tullius,_

_It has come to the Dominion's attention that the Empire is considering calling a truce in the war against the Stormcloak Rebellion. On a personal level, I recognise the wisdom of this step, which will grant you the time needed to reestablish your supply routes and receive much-needed support through High Rock._

_As First Emissary of the Aldmeri Dominion, however, it is necessary for me to ask that you allow my presence at any negotiations which take place between your two governments. I understand that this may place some strain on such proceedings. However, I am confident that this handicap is not one that will prove insurmountable to a man of your experience._

_It would pain me to be forced to report to my superiors that the representative of the Emperor in Skyrim had entered into secret dealings with our enemies, the outcome of which was the restriction of the Dominion's right to move freely across Skyrim in pursuit of Talos-worshipers... a restriction which the Stormcloak Rebellion-- I am sure we are both aware-- will inevitably try to demand. I trust I need not remind you of the terms of the White-Gold Concordat._

_Elenwen, First Emissary of the Aldmeri Dominion to the Kingdom of Skyrim._

* * *

General Tullius heartily disliked his job.

He disliked the cold. He disliked fighting a war against traitors who'd once been counted among the Legion's finest men, and he disliked Ulfric Stormcloak. Death before bowing to the Dominion, indeed. The man talked well for a traitor who'd broken under torture during the Great War and betrayed the Empire, and who, when ambushed, surrendered without at fight. Stormcloak sympathisers might speak of insurmountable odds at Darkwater Crossing. Tullius had been there. One squad of less than thirty men was not insurmountable, even if Tullius _was_ leading it personally.

Mostly though, Tullius disliked the fact that at times like now, when couriers delivered letters to him from the Thalmor Embassy addressed in the flowing cursive that said, unmistakably, that they'd been penned by the First Emissary's own hand, there was a part of him that actually wanted to don the traitor's sky-blue hauberk, and join the rebellion himself.

He didn't, of course. Unlike some, General Tullius was no traitor to the Empire, or the Emperor.

And so Tullius thanked the courier politely, like the decent Cyrodiilic Imperial that he was, and returned to his desk.

The sealed, unasked for and unwelcome letter looked at him.

Tullius looked back.

Footsteps sounded, as Legate Rikke approached to stand beside him.

"I'd offer you mead, sir, if you weren't on duty," she said, glancing at the writing.

Nords and their belief that mead could fix everything. Tullius would never understand them.

"What does she want, sir?" Rikke said.

To give him a headache, Tullius felt like saying, but didn't. And then, because, after all, he was the representative of the Emperor, and a mature, seasoned general to boot, he unsealed the thing, read it, and swore. Damned Thalmor. Damned, nosy Thalmor and their damned need to put their damned fingers in every single one of the Empire's pies. Oblivion take the lot of them. Though Tullius was not sure that even Oblivion would have wanted them.

"May I read it, sir?" Rikke said.

Wordlessly, Tullius passed it to her.

He outranked her, technically, but this was the woman's homeland, and she'd fought beside Ulfric before. Tullius valued her insight, and respected her loyalty.

"Her presence is going to be... unhelpful," Rikke said, scanning the page. "Can you refuse?"

"Not easily, and not without a causing diplomatic incident, Legate."

Legate Rikke put the paper down.

"You can't suggest that she delegate this to a subordinate?"

"Their Third Emissary is in a coma. I'm not sure about the second one. You think that would help?"

"There were... stories. Elenwen was Ulfric's interrogator during the Great War. He wouldn't speak much about what had happened afterwards, but--" she pressed her lips together firmly, eyes smoldering.

Tullius didn't need to know more. The Thalmor were cruel to their prisoners. So was the Empire. He'd spoken with enough survivors of such dungeons to guess what was not being said, even if the Imperial in him didn't understand this frankly Nordic need to not betray the weaknesses of an enemy just because they'd once, twenty years ago, been a friend. Still, he would not push. He'd pushed his Nordic soldiers before now, and all that had earned him was resentment, and stubborn silence.

"Alright," Tullius said. "We'll ask her to delegate."

She wouldn't, he knew.

If she'd tortured Ulfric Stormcloak, she'd made this request to attend knowing what she'd do to the proceedings.

Elenwen was ambitious, cunning, and cruel. She wanted to remind the Stormcloaks of that.

This was nothing more, or less, than a power play.

It was just unfortunate that it was Tullius' truce she'd picked to be her stage.

"If we hired a thug or two to ambush her in the High Pass..." Legate Rikke said.

"We'd jeopardise the peace between the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire. Unfortunately."

Damned Thalmor.

"Talos willing, a dragon will eat her for us then, or whoever she delegates," Rikke muttered.

"What was that?" Tullius said.

"Nothing."

Nords. Nords, and their damned stupidity.

He hoped, when they won this war, that his replacement would be as deaf as he pretended to be.

"Dismissed, Legate," Tullius said, and began writing.

_To Elenwen, First Emissary of the Aldmeri Dominion to the Kingdom of Skyrim,_

_The Empire recognises the legitimacy of the Dominion's concerns. Rest assured, any truce between us and the Stormcloaks will be of but a temporary nature, and last only as long as it takes for the Dragon Threat to be resolved. The Empire will allow a representative from the Aldmeri Dominion to attend the proceedings, to confirm that the terms of the treaty do not violate the terms of the White-Gold Concordat-- though, as this is an internal matter, any other input from the representative is naturally discouraged._

_Due to your unfortunate history with Ulfric Stormcloak, it would be preferred if you delegated the task of witnessing the proceedings to a trusted subordinate. I am sure you have at least one of them._

_General Tullius._


	17. All Freedom Comes With A Price

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## All Freedom Comes With A Price

* * *

_To Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm, Skyrim's True King,_

_The world-eater walks, devouring souls. So say the Greybeards, who tell me also that I must trap a dragon inside Dragonsreach to stop this threat. Jarl Vignar will not permit this unless a truce is called in the Civil War, as he fears a counterstrike by the Empire is imminent. I have spoken to General Tullius, who has expressed his willingness to meet with you. I understand any reluctance you may feel, but I must impress upon you the urgent need to take this step, for the future of Skyrim._

_Being neutral, High Hrothgar has offered to host any negotiations._

_Please write to me if, and when, you can attend._

_Talos be with you,_

_Einar._

* * *

Ulfric did not return to visit Ondolemar the day after the vampire attack, nor the day after that.

It ought, Ondolemar thought, to have been a kindness. It _ought_ to have given Ondolemar the time he needed to plot, sleep, eat moldy bread, and ponder what meaning, if any, had lain behind that unnerving dream.

Unfortunately, it had not.

It was the guards who were to blame for this. Ondolemar did not know which of the twenty Nords who'd helped kill the vampire had boasted in their cups of this mighty deed, and so, being a fair mer, he blamed them all equally for the fact that they'd acquired overnight such epithets as 'Vampire Slayers' and, 'The Protectors of Skyrim's True King,' while he, High Justiciar of Skyrim and a ranking officer of the Aldmeri Dominion, had become merely, 'That yellow elf who nearly got all his blood sucked out.'

Had security been tighter, it would not have been a problem.

Had security been even _vaguely_ prioritised, Ondolemar would not have known that someone _had_ talked in their cups.

Security, however, was _not_ prioritised. Or if it was, then Windhelm didn't have an official policy that discouraged citizens from wandering into the cells to gawk at the prisoners whenever they felt like it.

“My pa said you were bitten by a vampire. Were you bitten by a vampire?” said a wide-eyed girl, accompanied by a guard whose steely glare dared Ondolemar to try any tricks on the brat. “I think you were. I'm going to join the Stormcloaks when I grow up, and kill vampires too. Then they'll never bite anyone again.”

“You would do better joining the Vigilantes of Stendarr, if that is your goal in life,” Ondolemar told her. “They would at least recognise what you were, when you were inevitably turned, and would kill you before you infected anyone else.”

“What's 'turned'?”

Auri-El preserve him from fools.

Ondolemar directed an accusing look at the guard.

The guard ignored it.

“Turned,” Ondolemar said, to the brat, “Means exactly that. You turn into a vampire.”

“I wouldn't turn into a vampire. I'm nice. My pa says so, and I don't throw stones at the greyskins.”

“Demanding prerequisites indeed. The title is clearly well-earned.”

The brat, capable it seemed of detecting sarcasm, stamped a petulant foot. Her lip wobbled dangerously.

“You're mean. I hope Talos smites you.”

“What is your name, child?” Ondolemar asked, kindly. “And if you are literate, tell me the spelling, too. I would hate to make an error when I reported your heresy to the First Emissary, should I by chance survive this.”

The guard sent him a dark look and took the brat's hand then, speaking of worrying parents and not trying to visit the prisoners again without proper supervision. They left.

More followed.

“I heard Ulfric Stormcloak saved his life,” a young man said, awed.

“Nonsense. Why would he save one of the pointy-ears?” said his companion, older by some five years; perhaps his sister. “If he saved him, I'm a greyskin. More likely he tasted so foul the vampire died of it on the spot.”

“But the guards said--,”

“The guards will say _anything_.”

"Hey you! Did Jarl Ulfric really save you?"

Such stupidity did not deserve to be acknowledged. Ondolemar treated the both of them to an icy silence accompanied by an equally icy glare, and had the satisfaction of seeing them depart, still muttering, within ten minutes.

With lunch came an elderly Nord, bent by age, with grey hair and fire in her eyes.

“We never had any problems with vampires showing up before now. It's your doing somehow, no doubt. You and your cursed elf magicks. Did you bring her in to assassinate Jarl Ulfric?”

“The Dominion does not treat with vampires,” Ondolemar said, haughtily.

“You're a Thalmor, goldskin?"

"I am. More, I am the Head of the Justiciars in Skyrim."

Suspicion melted into hate.

"Where did you take my son?” she demanded, hoarse and fierce.

Ondolemar was silent.

" _W_ _here did you take my son_?”

Common, such words, no matter which hold one visited, or was stationed in. Always, there was at least one mother, one father, one brother, whose family had been split by heresy. Ondolemar ignored the plea with practiced ease. He ignored the woman, too, when her cries turned to wailing, and that wailing devolved into beating her fists against the bars until her wrinkled fingers began to bleed. Eventually, the guards bore her off half fainting.

They had his sympathies.

He doubted that he had theirs.

The next day, fewer visitors came. Those who did came not because he'd been bitten by a Bosmer, but because he represented the Aldmeri Dominion; a far more acceptable reason to be stared at, even if Ondolemar wasn't sure that the proud title he'd laid claim to was actually open in these dark times. Their words blended together after the first few hours.

_Monster._

_Where is my child?_

_Where is my parent?_

_Where is my sibling?_

_Where is my friend?_

_Goldskin._

_Knife-ear._

_Die._

On day three, they began bringing rotting food to throw at him.

Ondolemar was mildly surprised they weren't bringing stones.

“You should consider restricting access to my cell,” Ondolemar said, on day four.

“Pride smarting, goldskin?” the guard who was delivering his breakfast said.

Ondolemar's lips thinned unpleasantly.

“My pride has endured worse blows than rotting tomatoes and the sneers of a handful of ill-bred peasants.”

“Then I'm sure it'll survive until they get bored of it. We're checking them for weapons when they come in, if it makes you feel better. Jarl Ulfric's been busy lately, but I doubt he wants you dead yet.”

"It does not," Ondolemar said.

The guard-- Finn, he thought-- shrugged.

Ondolemar felt a stab of impatience. Their goals should have aligned. He did not wish to be pelted by filth, and they should not have been happy that they had no way of stopping anyone from the Embassy from smuggling in a message under the pretext of tossing food. He resisted the urge to point that out. If he was dirty, he'd been dirtier. Auri-El did not turn from his own just because they stank. Being left alone was not worth sacrificing the chance of a message getting through to him, in the unlikely event that anyone in the Dominion tried.

 _Fool,_ his mind whispered.

If Elenwen sent anyone, it would be an assassin.

What use had the Dominion for a Justiciar who could not escape a prison as lax as this?

Uncomfortable questions.

Ondolemar paced for the rest of the day, and pretended they did not exist.

On day five, Ondolemar did not bother standing when when the most belligerent of those who'd suffered at the Dominion's hands came. He did not do them the courtesy of acknowledging their presence at all. Instead he knelt calmly, eyes shut, meditating on the infinite glory of Auri-El's grace and curbing the instinct to throw up a ward against the projectiles they seemed to think were better wasted on a Thalmor already covered in filth than used productively for compost.

He could have incinerated them. Lightning would have stopped them, too.

He could have, but ultimately, they were as children throwing stones at a hobbled chaurus. They disliked him, and they had good reason to do so, but they were, ultimately, incapable of harming him by word or by blow. He would not waste the card that was his one free hand on such petty revenge. He needed to escape before he was executed, and he needed to survive long enough once he did to make it to the Embassy.

He fully intended to live, if only to see that their names were reported to the Elenwen in full.

* * *

The dungeons smelled of rotting eggs, stale blood, and old vegetables.

A man with a weaker nose might have minded. Ulfric Stormcloak had fought on battlefields where he'd had to wade his way through blood, entrails and the excrement of the dying just to cleave another enemy in two. Still, this was... unexpected.

"What happened?" he said, to Cahlad.

The Nord shrugged.

"Word got around that he was a Thalmor. His fault. He got some visitors, and he pulled the whole 'Do you know who I am?' shtick, chest puffed out and everything. I didn't have the heart to say people couldn't see him. Not when some of them were crippled by his kind in the Great War, and when others have family missing he's sent off to die."

"He is unharmed?"

"I checked them for weapons. I let them throw food at him, if it was soft, and eggs. Should I not, in future?"

Yes, Cahlad should not, because Ulfric would not let his people sink to humiliating helpless prisoners, no matter how much they deserved it.

No, Cahlad should continue allowing it, because all throwing soft, rotting food for a handful of days could hurt was the pride of an elf utterly, breathtakingly, remorseless-- who was oblivious even to the fact that he _should_ be sorry-- who'd brutally tormented the sons and daughters of Skyrim for six, solid years. 

"I will give you an answer after I have seen him," Ulfric said, at last.

The high elf was kneeling, when Ulfric entered the prison, eyes shut as they'd been shut the first day he'd been brought in here, his hands and most of his lower body hidden by his blanket. He'd made some effort to wipe the worst of the spoiled food off his face. Likely, he'd sacrificed lunch's water, or dinner's, to clean his hair and stubble, too. The rest of him was filthy.

“I do not think my people like you overmuch, elf,” Ulfric observed.

“And here I was dreaming that they were just trying to feed me something more substantial than rotting potatoes and stale bread,” his prisoner said, not opening his eyes, “Be careful, Jarl Ulfric. I will weep from the blow if you shatter my delusions so cruelly, and we both know how much you would enjoy that sight."

Unbroken. Snider than usual perhaps, and not enjoying this, but, ultimately, indifferent to this new development.

Ulfric stood in front of his cell, and folded his arms behind his back.

"Do you know why they hate you?"

"Because they realise that when I free myself, I will eviscerate them."

"You would tear out their innards, for the crime of throwing eggs?" Ulfric said, skeptically.

A slight pause.

"Obviously not. I would eviscerate them for worshiping Talos, but I would  _enjoy it more_ because they had thrown eggs."

"Your pride would seem to be your weakness," Ulfric noted.

"Astutely observed. Does that make you more eager to step on it?"

"It does," Ulfric admitted. "You know much that I wish that you would share."

Bending, he brushed a stray piece of what he suspected had once been apple off the stool, and sat.

“You could have let me--” Galmar protested.

Ulfric sent him a look that said,  _I am a Nord, not a milk-drinker that demands such simpering servitude from a shield brother._

Galmar grunted inaudibly.

“What could you have done?” the Thalmor said, after a slight pause.

“If you'd had your eyes open, you might have seen what,” Galmar said, disobligingly.

The high elf opened them then; glanced first at the Ulfric's hands, then the stool.

“Ah. I had not placed you as a man who minded sitting on rotting fruit."

“I do not, but it is not I who cleans my clothes, and Sifnar is not as young as he used to be.”

"Your clothes are cleaned?"

"They are. Sometimes, they are even cleaned more than once a year."

The high elf looked like he was trying to work out if this was a joke or not. Ulfric kept his expression neutral, and did not help him.

After a moment or two, the high elf gave up with a snide:

“You should consider a more practical garb.”

“Says one who usually wears thin robes on missions, and no armor beneath them at all.”

The elf's eyes flashed.

“My robes are layered with enchantments woven by the finest craftsmen in--”

“Enough," Ulfric cut him off, "That was not what I came here to discuss with you.”

"And what makes you think--,"

“What I came down here to ask you about, elf,” Ulfric cut him off for the second time, ignoring the poisonous look that earned him, "Is--,"

At that moment, a guard-- Jord, a Nord who'd signed up a month ago-- rushed into the room, panting.

“Jarl Ulfric. Commander. I'm sorry, I know you said you weren't to be bothered for a bit, but there's a _really, really big_ dragon above the city! It's-- well, it's not roasting anything because of the snow, but it's _trying really hard_?”

Immediately, Ulfric was on his feet.

“Tell the people to stay indoors, and get your bows out. I will--”

“Make it rue the day it ever dared to show it's hide above the Palace of the Kings?” Galmar grinned, eyes fierce.

“Aye. Something like that.”

“If you die--,” the Thalmor started.

“If I die,” Ulfric said, “It'll make for a good song.”

* * *

_To Einar, Dragonborn,_

_I will meet with the Empire in one week's time._

_Impress upon General Tullius that this farce will last_ _ only as long as the dragon threat remains __._

_Talos speed you in that task,_

_Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm, Skyrim's True King._

* * *

Rotting projectiles did not come the next day.

Instead, there came a Nord who smelt of sea salt and fish and-- incongruously-- of manure.

His name, he said, was Torsten Cruel-Sea, and he wanted to know if Ondolemar had robbed any graves recently.

The question was an insult.

The _idea_ was an insult.

Ondolemar stood, drawing himself up to his full height, the better to sneer down at his visitor.

“I am an officer of the Dominion. Perhaps my current condition disguises the fact, Nord, but know that I climbed to my rank because I was promoted-- many times-- in recognition of my  _numerous_ _upstanding_ _achievements_. I may be rotting inside a hole at present, I may be caked in filth and I may be awaiting execution, but I do not, and never have, _robbed_ _the graves of the dead_. I am a Thalmor, not a thief. If I need things the living will not give me freely, I _requisition_ _them_.”

“Aye. Aye… figures even you bastards would hate thieves,” the Nord muttered. “ _If_ you're not lying.”

There was… something, in the Nord's eyes. Madness, oddly familiar, and barely restrained.

“I am not,” Ondolemar said, evenly. “Such wretches bring disorder to every society they infest. If they had their way, there would be nothing civilised left.”

“That they would.”

Ondolemar folded his arms neatly behind him.

“Was there a point to this visit beyond verifying that I am a Justiciar with no such sordid avocations? If so, I suggest that you make it. I have better things to do with my time than looking at you.”

“Like what? Rotting in your hole?”

“Rotting in this hole without the stench of manure and fish which cling to you would be an improvement.”

“Figures one of the pointy-ears wouldn't be able to stand the smell of honest work.”

“You and I have a very different idea of what constitutes 'honest work'. Mine includes actually doing the work myself. Not that I would not feel like stepping on the Dunmer too, if Rendar is representative of the Dunmer population of Windhelm.”

“And just how would you feel about doing some hard work yourself?”

An abrupt turn to the conversation. Ondolemar frowned.

“I am in jail.”

“I know. I want someone dead.”

“Might I suggest approaching the Jarl? Or failing that, hiring a professional thug?”

“He's not listening. I tried, twice. Keeps talking about the war, and about how grave-robbing's a matter for the guards. And the thugs I hired never came back. I've tried three times. I even tried contacting--” the Nord broke off abruptly, as if suddenly remembering who he was talking to. “But they're busy these days, between the dragons and the war. Competent help is hard to get.”

“My heart bleeds for you.”

“You want out of this prison, elf?” the Nord said, bluntly.

Now that… that was-- Illegal, definitely. Unethical, too, and very, very disloyal.

“Naturally,” Ondolemar said, “Torsten Cruel-Sea, was it? Is that what you are offering?”

Torsten Cruel-Sea looked grimly satisfied.

“I've got connections. Money, too. I can get you smuggled out the assemblage and on a boat to Solitude faster that you can say 'Praise Talos'.”

“Since I am unlikely to say anything of the sort within the next few centuries, you would need to be a great deal faster than that to tempt me. In fairness, I must also warn you that if you did free me, I would be duty-bound to report you for heresy.”

“I've worshiped Talos faithfully for the last forty years, and no one's come to kidnap me in my sleep yet, elf. I'll take my chances. The way I see it, you goldskins have to go through the Empire to get to us, and if you were able to do that, you'd not have truced with them. We'll take the fight to you long before you get to us.”

“Are you sure? We have long memories, Cruel-Sea. Consider: Will your children be safe from us? Will their children?”

The Nord gave an ugly laugh.

“My child is dead. Cut to pieces on the streets by some beast, and even then her body wasn't safe from being pawed at by some filthy sneak-thief's cursed hands.”

There was the madness again, smoldering. Ondolemar could place it now. Such madness had burned, two centuries ago, in the eyes of those who'd sent their children to the Crystal Tower to be safe while they fought in the field during the Great Anguish. Burned, too, in the eyes of scouts in Valenwood who'd returned from routine missions to find whole camps decimated. Not the moment, if he wanted that boat to Solitude, to point out that this child's fate was not much crueler than that which might have befallen her had she been reported as the daughter of a Talos-worshiper, and taken to Northwatch Keep.

“If they are Altmer, these thieves, then likely they are dissidents who have fled to Stormcloak territory to escape the reach of our government. They would be secretive, were that so. They would appear but rarely, giving no names and avoiding contact with any who might report them?”

Silence, as Torsten Cruel-Sea mastered himself.

“Sounds about right. They call themselves the Summerset Shadows.”

 _Summerset_ , Ondolemar thought, lip curling.

“Assuredly, they are dissidents.”

“So you'll kill them?”

“I am in jail,” Ondolemar reminded the Nord.

“I can get you out,” the Nord reminded him.

There was no lie in his eyes. No doubt beneath the arrogance.

The offer was real then, or if it was not the Nord honestly believed it to be.

Ondolemar considered his options. On the one hand was pride, boredom, rotting vegetables, and the possibility that the unwelcome  _thing_ that lurked somewhere dark and small inside his chest, and seemed to stir whenever he considered Ulfric Stormcloak and his men too deeply, would continue growing. On the other was freedom, an uncomplicated goal, and a possible return to his old position.

Ondolemar asked Auri-El's opinion.

Auri-El was silent.

It seemed the choice was his, then. And in his subjective opinion, the scales tilted heavily in favor of the latter.

More, even when one considered things objectively, it was a case of converging interests. The Nord wanted justice for a dead child, and did not care who he needed to work with to get it. A narrow goal, but no less powerful for its simplicity. Similarly, if these Altmer were dissidents and thieves, then the Dominion's law and Auri-El's will were clear. Someone needed to terminate them. At least if that someone was himself, their deaths would be meted out by a worthy hand.

"... I would need to know where they were."

"Guards stationed at Anga's Mill talk about goldskin thieves, sometimes. Start scouting somewhere near there."

Imprecise. Time would be wasted. There would be bears in this wilderness, too, and dragons.

The scales balanced, even.

“... I would need a weapon. Preferably a dagger, if I am to have no help with this.”

“I can get you one.”

"One forged from something sharper than iron?"

"The Dragonborn makes a habit of selling sharpened ebony blades to Oengul. The man owes me a favor."

The Dragonborn had sold blades to Ghorza gra-Bagol in Markarth, too. He was known to be good at them.

The scales tilted right once more.

"... I would need clean clothes."

"I've got plenty."

The scales tilted even more.

“... You would truly trust me to keep my end of this deal?”

"I'd want your oath on it, to whatever god it is you serve."

A bold move. Ondolemar narrowed his eyes appraisingly.

"I would be willing to swear only on my life, not my soul, to complete the task."

"I'm content with that."

"You are very trusting," Ondolemar said, not quite questioning.

“Trust? No. But I know how to read men.”

“I am hardly a 'man'.”

“You're hardly a fool either. The way I see it, I'm the one with the leverage here. Border guards are sharper than fish-hooks these days and they'll snare you just as easily. Eastmarch's a cold place. If you thought you could make it to Morthal or Solitude on foot, without food or coin or proper clothing or being killed for your gold skin and your haughty airs on sight, you'd have run before now. You can't. But I've got connections in the docks. Got the farm too, outside the city walls. You kill those bastards for me and bring back my Fjotli's locket to prove it, and you'll sit tight and warm until you're reunited with the Empire and protected by your thrice-cursed truce.”

Ondolemar tilted his head a bit to one side.

"You make some good points."

Some very good points, actually.

Another look of grim satisfaction crossed the Nord's face.

"I often do."

"You have some way, I trust, to ensure I am not battered to death during my exit from the barracks?"

“Ulfric's to meet with the Empire in a week's time to negotiate a truce,”-- a fact that should have been withheld from a Thalmor prisoner; Ondolemar resisted the irrational urge to tell him so, and inclined his head-- “The guard'll be slacker with him gone, not that they're not already too lax as it is. There's more than a few who'll be left behind that I can get guarding you that think of their families more than their duties...”

It was not too late to refuse the offer.

It was not too late to say his standards had not yet dropped far enough to willingly join hands with a Nord.

"And the chances of my accessing a hot bath?" Ondolemar said, instead.

The Nord laughed then.

"High."

The scales tipped so firmly they touched the metaphorical floor.

“Very well, Cruel-Sea," Ondolemar said, "It seems we have an arrangement. In one week's time, I will swear the oaths to bind me to your task if, and only if, you succeed in freeing me. In the meantime, I will be waiting. See that you do not disappoint me.”

"See, goldskin, that you don't disappoint me. My daughter's soul watches us both."


	18. Countdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
>  **Chapter warnings** : PTSD, flashbacks.

## Countdown

**6 Days Before The Truce**

“What do you know of the Forsworn movements in Markarth?” Ulfric said.

“Nothing I feel like sharing with you, Jarl Ulfric.”

The world had not ended then, Ulfric thought, seating himself on his stool.

“You said, I recall, that you had watched a group of them duel with a dragon, before.”

"That story was not intended for your ears. My point stands."

Ulfric gripped the hand that wanted to close about his prisoner's throat firmly by the wrist, and pressed it firmly against his knee.

"What tactics did they use?"

"Their usual. You have fought them before, have you not?"

"In the years since I cast them from Markarth, I suspect their tactics have changed."

A slight pause.

"Arrows, magic, and taunting," the Thalmor said, grudgingly.

"If they have no better tactics than that, why crawl out of their holes to engage a dragon?"

“Why not? Dragons care little who they slaughter, and Skryim is populated by fools. There are very few factions who do not rush forth to fight them when dragons burn their homes.”

Ulfric translated that to mean that the Thalmor had no more idea than he.

“Where are the Forsworn striking from?”

“Why ask me?”

“Six years, you were stationed there. You never once inquired?”

“I did ask Jarl Igmund once to share the political and military secrets of Markarth with me, but for some reason he was disinclined to do so. Anyone would think he _minded_ the fact that he'd been threatened with war by us during the Markarth Incident.”

Slowly, Ulfric's hand clenched into a fist. He breathed deeply.

“You are literate, I trust?” the high elf persisted, seemingly oblivious to these danger signals, “Why not write to Markarth and ask? I'm sure the Silver-Bloods-- you know that clan, I trust?-- would help you. They were irritatingly vocal in their support of you while I served there, and their insight is likely far more useful than my own. They took a far more active interest in political matters in the Reach than I was required to.”

Ulfric had written. Jarl Thongvor had replied, politely but bluntly, that the Jarl of Markarth was capable of handling his own affairs without input from the Jarl of Windhelm. Such pride was to be expected from any Jarl, but there were... rumors... that had come to Ulfric's ears regarding Cidhna Mine-- impossible, given the power of the Silver-Blood family and the insidious reach of the Forsworn rebellion, to confirm-- that disturbed him.

He did not say so. There was no need to share that with a Thalmor.

“And you never did anything you were not required to, of course,” Ulfric said, instead.

“Of course,” the high elf echoed.

“You did not judge it prudent to learn where not to send your men to wander in the Reach?”

“Men were never assigned to serve beneath me.”

“ _Elves_ , then.”

“To the mer who served me, I said only that they should stay on the road when moving openly, and travel in groups since the Forsworn occupied every crumbling tower, every homestead, every abandoned mine and every roadside camp. We have the advantage, of course, over the average traveler that they tell us to move on or die when they see us, instead of killing us on sight.”

“Why?”

“Auri-El knows. I never asked.”

“Of course you did not.”

“There is no need to sound like that. I take the White-Gold Concordat seriously, that is all. My involvement in Skyrim is strictly limited to rooting out the Blades and the servants of Talos. The rest of its numerous problems are the Empires, and yours.”

“You are lying,” Ulfric said, evenly.

“I certainly have little motivation to speak truthfully.”

“I have a storage room full of Nord mead,” Ulfric reminded him.

“I have devised an effective counterstrategy to that now.”

“If you think you can fool me into freeing you twice, elf, you are wrong.”

“We shall see, Jarl Ulfric. We shall see.”

It turned out that the elf's newest strategy was not persuading Ulfric to free him after all. When Ulfric and Galmar had, between them, forced eleven bottles of the stuff into him, the swaying high elf smiled with vague but genuine warmth at both of them, and answered every question they asked in an unpronounceable tongue that Wuunferth the Unliving later said he suspected was, from the few fragments Ulfric could remember, ancient Aldmeri.

Infuriating elf.

Had he been a Nord--

He was not though, and so, glaring, and reluctantly thwarted, Ulfric refused to feel the smallest flicker of anything that resembled grudging respect at all.

“He might remember the common-tongue when he was stretched on the rack,” Galmar said, darkly.

He might, but he might not. Starving the elf might have worked better, Ulfric thought. At least when starving, the elf hadn't seemed to be able to think as much when drunk.

He did not say so.

Ulfric had not been lying to the elf, when he'd said he was going to try confusing him.

Ulfric had broken exactly nineteen men in his life. He'd killed more trying, and failing. He remembered their faces. He remembered their names. He reminded himself, each night these faces came to haunt him, of the lives spared through victories won, of the innocents saved, that had resulted from the vile act.

There were no time-sensitive secrets this elf knew that were still relevant. He'd not bothered learning political secrets. He'd not bothered learning his government's motivations. Men suffered in Northwatch, true, but if the high elf could be trusted, Northwatch lay somewhere in Haafingar. Even if he did manage to wrest the exact location from his stubborn captive, Ulfric would not be able to assault it until the Empire was driven from Skyrim's shores. With a planned truce within the week, that day was far farther off than Ulfric wanted it to be.

Ulfric would not, _refused_ to, torture lightly.

Moreover, even if he had had no such qualms, Ulfric was not certain he possessed the cruel imagination needed to break one familiar with the horrors the Thalmor inflicted upon their prisoners and their own operatives who failed them. Try, and fail, and the elf would likely lie in the most treacherous ways he could imagine to avenge his battered pride, or hold his tongue completely and say nothing at all.

Drawing information from the elf might be akin to pulling teeth from a child, but two days ago Ulfric had received a letter from the Vigilantes of Stendarr thanking him for his report, and stating that the vampires beneath Mara's Eye Pond had been dealt with. The elf was capable of being honest, then, when he wanted to be. The question was just if one of Elenwen's subordinates would want to be honest often enough to justify the restraint Ulfric was showing him.

Talos alone knew.

“You do not speak the tongue at all?” Ulfric said, later, to Wuunferth.

“I'm sorry to say I never learned it. I've a friend at the College of Winterhold who could translate, but he rarely leaves the Arcanaeum. You would need to take the Thalmor to him, I'm afraid.”

Which, naturally, Ulfric would not do. The College of Winterhold sought to remain neutral in this war, and his prisoner had spoken of a friend lurking there not so long ago.

Ulfric left. Today, unfortunately, was a loss, and with the terms he wanted included in the truce to plan with Galmar and Yrsarald, Ulfric could not afford to waste as much time visiting his prisoner as he would have liked. No matter. He would have too much time on his hands once it was signed. There would be plenty of time to question the Thalmor then.

Perhaps, by the time the truce ended, Ulfric would have a clearer idea of whether his tactics were working. It would not be too late change them before he executed the elf if they were not.

Consoling himself with this thought, Ulfric slept.

**4 Days Before The Truce**

The visitors had stopped bringing rotting food.

They came, still, and they cursed him when they did, but they did not throw refuse.

Ondolemar wondered if he had Ulfric to thank for that, or if they'd just run out.

He was not grateful.

He was not grateful in the slightest.

A Thalmor of the Dominion was not grateful for the absence of rotting projectiles. Ondolemar paced until late evening, and dreamed that night of a curved, Dwarven bow, supple and strong, whose string had been cut cleanly in two.

**2 Days Before The Truce**

"My first battle," Ulfric said, "Was against a wolf."

It had not been. Ulfric had been too young for battles when he'd lived with his father, and he'd still been too young for them when he'd left for High Hrothgar. The Greybeards had not approved of the arts of war. There'd been a Legate in the legion who'd tried to knock some sense into the young idealists who barely knew how to use a sword, much less full armor, when he'd signed up for the Empire's cause, but time had not been on her side. In the end, like too many twenty years ago, Ulfric's first battle had been against elves.

"It sought to eat a playmate of mine," Ulfric said, expanding on the tale, "We had both escaped the city walls."

Uncertainty flickered in his prisoner's eyes.

"That seems... imprudent."

"It was. I was not a wise child."

"I meant the wolf. I would have eaten you, first."

Ulfric sent him a dark look.

"Somehow, that does not surprise me."

A short silence. Then:

"What was your first battle?" Ulfric asked.

It was a theory he was testing, this. He had, deliberately, come alone. He had, deliberately, sat down, as if at ease in his enemy's company. He had, deliberately, removed as much anger as he could from his voice, and replaced it with idle curiosity. _Mirror me_ , was his silent invitation, and something in the elf's eyes made him wonder if the Thalmor had guessed what it was that he was trying to do.

"My first battle," the Thalmor said, anyway, "was against a scamp."

"A scamp?"

"A minor Daedra, about," one arm rose, gesturing, "so high. Petty but vicious, if the summoner loses control over them. A classmate was showing off in the instructor's absence; needless to say, he spent the rest of the day in the healing halls."

Was the elf lying, Ulfric wondered, as he had been? It did not matter.

"And you?" Ulfric asked.

"I sent it back to Oblivion, naturally. With help from my fellow students, of course, though since the thing was targeting me, not them, I like to think I deserve most of the credit for dealing with it."

"If it targeted you, not your classmate, why did he need to go to the healing halls?"

"The instructor judged that his mind needed examining, and restoration."

Ulfric was silent.

"Your kind have healers for the mind?" he said, at last.

"Obviously. Think of the trauma  _you_ feel after a mere two decades of war. Imagine your trauma multiplied across the centuries. There are those who do not need them, or want them, of course, but no sane mer wants to end up abusing magic as carelessly as the King of Worms once did, or spend their days flinching from fire spells because they spent too long choking on ashes while watching their friends being roasted to death inside a cage by an atronach in Oblivion."

Ulfric put aside the instinctive flash of  _fury_ that this elf could say so easily that his mind was scarred.

The fury that this elf could so easily  _see_ it.

"Is that how your government reeducates you?" he said, instead, "By 'fixing' your minds?"

The elf laughed, then. There was an odd note to it.

"They would be upset with you for saying that, the healers. They take their jobs seriously and are oath-sworn only to mend, not constrain or teach or destroy. No, that is not how the Thalmor reeducate. Reeducation is... well, it is not your business, really, is it?"

"You are my enemy. Your weaknesses are my business."

A misstep, reminding the elf of that, but the Thalmor's eyes were curiously... distant.

"It really isn't very imaginative."

"Humor me," Ulfric said.

There was a slight pause. A moment, where Ulfric wondered if the elf actually would.

Then:

"The Dominion," the elf said, clipped and cold, "does not humor Nords."

He would say nothing else for the rest of the evening. Ulfric left him.

**The Morning Of The Truce**

It was, in the end, absurdly easy to walk out of Windhelm's dungeons.

A guard he'd not met before delivered breakfast and set of Stormcloak armor, and removed his restraints. A straw dummy was lain on top of the straw, reclining, and his blanket tossed roughly over the top of it. Such, it seemed, was the extent of the trickery required to walk freely from Windhelm's Palace of the Kings.

"I would not lie so inelegantly," Ondolemar objected, coldly. "Nor would I sleep on the straw."

"Feel free to prop it correctly, if you're willing to risk being caught down here."

Ondolemar wasn't.

He was ignored in the barracks. The guards that were left-- a skeleton staff at best-- were too busy neglecting their duties to pay much attention to two more soldiers who were probably doing the same. The chaos of it spoke of undisciplined, untrained volunteers. Fair, perhaps, since that was probably exactly what they were.

"Do you think the Jarl will really make peace with those spineless milk drinkers?" one of them said.

"If he does, it won't last."

"I hope he doesn't get attacked by a frost troll."

"As if a frost troll would be a match for _Ulfric Stormcloak."_

And then Ondolemar was out in the streets, beneath the sun.

The guard leading him headed for, not the docks, but a tall manor, covered in snow. Ondolemar's confusion was brief; Cruel-Sea waited inside. A pouch of gold changed hands, and the guard departed. Desperate, Ondolemar wondered, or greedy, to betray his Jarl for what had to be less than a thousand pieces of gold?

"I understood that I would be travelling to the farm house first?" Ondolemar said.

"I understood, elf, that you wanted a bath first and clean clothes. I assume you also want privacy? Swear your oath and you'll have all three."

"I do," Ondolemar agreed. "And I am a mer of my word. Since you have freed me, our bargain is struck. I will hunt down the Altmer dissident responsible for stealing the locket of your dead daughter, and I will kill him. The locket he stole, I will bring to you personally, or send via a courier if I suspect a trap is waiting for me. I will not, of my own volition, swerve from this task until it is complete. This I swear on my life, by Auri-El, and may he summon me to his side if I break my oath."

There were loopholes Ondolemar had left himself, but it seemed to satisfy the Nord.

Minutes later, he stood in a room actually _heated_ by a fire, with furniture in it not made of stone.

A set of mage's robes hung by the fire, alongside a hood, a dagger, and a pair of leather boots.

He noticed them, but the steaming tub of hot water took precedence.

It had been more than twenty days since he'd washed. A Nord might not have minded. Ondolemar was not a Nord. He might _endure_ being perpetually filthy, but he _minded_. Within moments, blessed, clean water, enveloped him. Not clean for long; too soon, it was brown. He scrubbed himself ruthlessly, and had the dubious satisfaction of watching it turn black.

Once he was done, Ondolemar dried himself, dressed himself, and thanked Auri-El for blessing the Dragonborn with enough ability to hone a blade sharp enough to shave with. 

“I owe you a debt,” he said, to Torsten Cruel-Sea, twenty minutes later, when he was done.

“You know how to repay it.”

“I do,” Ondolemar agreed. “You will observe, soon, the difference between the competence of your average thug or Stormcloak soldier, and an officer of the Aldmeri Dominion.”

The Nord grunted noncommittally.

“I've paid a beggar to escort you to the assemblage. I've told her to set the rumor going that you're an aspiring alchemist here to visit Nurelion, who left because you heard he's been ill lately. Should last you out the assemblage gates, or until the guards work out you're missing from your cell. Talos be with you.”

“Auri-El will be with me. I have no need of your false-god.”

Another noncommittal grunt. Then:

“My wife's packed enough rations to last you two days. After that, you'll have to forage.”

Unexpected, that. Ondolemar had assumed he'd be foraging the moment he stepped outside Windhelm. More unexpectedly still, when he inspected the pouch, it did not seem to be spoiled muck he'd been given, but actual... food. There was an odd feeling somewhere inside his chest. Ondolemar crushed it before he could dwell on it, and focused instead on the fact that the drink that accompanied it was Nordic mead.

“Practical. My journey will be the quicker for it, though since regulations prohibit me from getting drunk on duty, I will decline that swill. The beggar, you said, was outside?”

“She is. Keep you hood low. If you're caught, you can kiss your--”

“Clean clothes goodbye,” Ondolemar finished for him. “Yes, I am aware.”

The Nord did not look like that had been quite what he'd meant to say, but he didn't argue.

Absurdly, so absurdly, easy, to follow the beggar to the unmanned gate that led down to the docks. The guard there-- bribed, or just indifferent?-- made no comment when Ondolemar stepped onto a rickety skiff, and was rowed across the river by an Argonian. The Argonian was more curious, if the doubtful glances he kept shooting Ondolemar were anything to judge by. He did not comment though. Frightened, perhaps, to involve himself more deeply than he needed to. Ondolemar did not speak to him.

Had Ondolemar been in charge of Windhelm's security--

Well, he thought, stepping off the skiff. Best, for his own sake, that he had not been.

The Argonian left. Alone, Ondolemar stood for a moment, staring upwards, drinking in the glory of the sun.

Then, he turned his steps southwest.

He had a dissident to locate, an oath to keep and a boat's passage to secure to Solitude.

Who knew? If he was lucky--

Snow crunched behind him.

Ondolemar twisted around, just in time to be grappled down into the snow by, unmistakably--

"J'datharr?" Ondolemar frowned.

Infiltration, assassination, and espionage. An asset to the Dominion, and one he'd used himself to collect evidence more than once before. The Khajiit had been a welcome sight in those days. Now, kneeling on his chest, knife an inch away from his throat, a welcome sight he most certainly was _not._ Ondolemar glared at him, and calculated the odds of being able to cast a fireball before J'datharr's blade found his jugular. They were depressingly high.

If Elenwen had ordered this--

"You are not Malborn," J'datharr said, after a moment.

"Does that fact increase the likelihood of you removing yourself from my person?"

It did, apparently. He had done Elenwen an injustice, it seemed. J'datharr stood, sheathing his weapon, and extended a hand.

He was a member of the Dominion, so Ondolemar took it and stood.

"My apologies, High Justiciar. My target is-- slippery. Slippery enough to try to leave through the docks, disguised."

"Consider yourself forgiven," Ondolemar said, brushing the snow off him, "You may even consider the matter forgotten entirely, if you will aid me in a mission."

"I already have a mission. My mission wants to flee to Morrowind, and will if he gets half a chance."

Fair enough, Ondolemar supposed, if regrettable.

"You are in contact with the First Emissary?"

A slow nod.

"Tell her that I am alive, and have not betrayed the Dominion, and am currently hunting a group of dissidents called the Summerset Shadows. They are thieves, who rob both the living and the dead. Tell her that if I succeed, I will make for Solitude, and meet her at the Embassy if I have received no further orders from her."

"And if you fail?"

"If I fail, then I will meet her in Aetherius."

**The Evening Of The Truce**

Ulfric did not remember much of the truce, afterwards.

There had been a vague feeling of displacement as he'd walked into the halls of his childhood to find _her._ Tullius' fault. Rikke's too, for being angry at Einar for dismissing the elf.

He remembered being thankful she was gone. Remembered wondering where she'd gone to, unwatched up here. Remembered breathing, speaking by rote, asking-- too roughly for diplomacy-- for that which had been discussed ten times over in Windhelm. Remembered the terms had not been fair. The Rift for Hjaalmarch, a hold he surrounded on three sides, and that was his for the plucking? But it had not mattered. Einar had sent Elenwen from the room, and Ulfric owed him much for that.

It was that, or not accepting the truce at all. Tullius had nothing else to trade.

After, he'd ridden straight for Windhelm.

Away from the Masters of his childhood who watched him, silently judging.

Away from Rikke, who looked at him like a stranger, and thought less of him than the monster who'd ridden to High Hrothgar beside her.

Away from _her._

Away from--

_A tiny cell, being roasted alive--_

_Stretched on the rack, flesh tearing--_

_“I know there is a tunnel that leads to the Imperial City. Where?”_

_“Who leads the Legions?”_

_“Where are their supply lines?”_

_Gentle hands, healing his wounds, tsking._

_“I don't want to hurt you, child. It pains me that you make this necessary.”_

_Vile potions forced down his throat, that left him shaking and vomiting blood--_

_A cloud of frenzied rage, and Talos help him, it was a Nord he'd torn apart on the floor--_

_Stretches of blackness he could not remember--_

_“Tell me, and this will stop.”_

_“Tell me, and this will stop.”_

_“Tell me, and everything will end.”_

Breathe, Ulfric reminded himself. Breathe.

Feel the reigns beneath his fingers. Feel the flesh of his steed beneath him. Hear the wind. Smell the snow.

Then was then. Now was now. He was stronger. He was more powerful. It would not happen again.

It could not.

Galmar was worried, Ulfric knew. He rode too closely beside him, as if he feared Ulfric's horse would bolt.

Twenty years.

Twenty years, and with just one glance, one handful of words, she could make him--

_Breathe. Breathe._

"Sir?" Cahlad stammered, when they made Windhelm's gates, "The prisoner--"

"Not now, lad," Galmar said, a touch too forcefully.

"What of him?" Ulfric said, roughly.

Cahlad swallowed.

"He's escaped."

Everything coalesced into pure, irrational, rage.

There was a door frame beside him. Ulfric drove his fist into it hard enough to break it.

"Get a healer," someone said. Galmar, perhaps.

It did not matter.

The elf would not make it out of Eastmarch. Ulfric would look for him, would find him, and when Ulfric caught him, Ondolemar of-- whatever his homeland was called these days, would _rue the day he'd been born._


	19. A Bitter Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Bitter Mercy

Auri-El had been kind, thus far.

Ondolemar had arrived at Anga's Mill the day before by noon. He had spoken with the weathered crone who owned it, and had been told that, yes, Altmer thieves did show themselves occasionally to take supplies, that there were caves to the north and south-- but the Altmer who were spotted had fled north-- and that he'd best be moving on if he didn't want to be reported as one of them. Ondolemar had.

He'd traveled northwest, first, following the road, and walked further than he thought any decent thief ought to have traveled just to steal bread before finally finding a cave infested with dreugr. Fortunately, this particular brand of undead was not perceptive. Ondolemar moved stealthily, took one look at the enormous ebony bow strapped across the back of a particularly tall one wearing a crown, and beat a hasty retreat. Wherever the thieves were, it was not here. There'd be more Altmer bodies about, were that so.

A further search of the area revealed nothing but a few scattered ore veins, and a shallow cave with a sleeping bear. Ondolemar retreated from that, too. It had dawned on him, then, that perhaps, dissidents and thieves though they were, they did possess enough intelligence to flee in a direction that was not their camp, when followed by guards.

The sun had been setting by then, and it had begun to snow.

A wiser mer might have slept.

Ondolemar had moved south, still following the road.

Keep the road beneath his feet-- what scattered cobblestones were left of it, anyway-- and he'd make up his wasted hours. The theory had seen him cross the bridge past Anga's Mill. There'd been a brief scuffle with a snowy cat there; the first he'd felt was the raking pain of claws tearing into his shoulders. He'd cried out, and the cat had circled, but ultimately, the wound had been nothing a healing spell had not fixed, and his knife had made short work of the beast. His father, a frugal mer, would have cut off its teeth and gouged out its eyes. Ondolemar left it to rot.

Keep to the road.

Keep to the road.

One more hour. Just one more. Not too far south, though, or he'd hit Mara's Eye Pond, and he'd be food for the vampires. Ondolemar shivered. A problem, that. The spells of protection he'd cast against the cold would not last once his magicka ran out, and the colder the weather, the more he needed to expend holding it in place. Eventually, he'd pressed himself into a tiny crevice between two jutting shelves of stone, and waited, crouching in the meager shelter it offered, for morning to come and the storm to end.

Once, something slow and heavy moved past, invisible in the blizzard.

Once, he heard the hiss of an ice-wraith.

He did not sleep.

Morning had come, at last.

It had taken longer for the storm to end.

When it did, Ondolemar was, he realised, lost.

The road was nowhere, and what landmarks he might have recognised, from the maps, where now blanketed by snowdrifts. Had he possessed a map… no, had he known spells for clairvoyance and scrying, he would have been fine. Ondolemar had learned neither, unfortunately, and so he charred the end of a stick, picked up four icy stones, and marked them 'N', 'S', 'E', and 'W'.

“I will,” he said, to the sun, “Travel in whatever direction those facing upwards tell me to. Guide me, since I cannot guide myself.”

Auri-El said nothing.

Ondolemar threw the stones.

North, south, and east, said those facing upwards. He eyed them dubiously, before shrugging. A cryptic answer, but no less obvious for that. North and south canceled each other, so east it was. Ondolemar adjusted his steps accordingly, steering by the sun.

\--O--

“I had a dream last night. Stendarr told me he went south.”

That was Elof, of course. No true Nord would have come to Ulfric with a story like that. Ulfric suppressed the temptation to snap at the boy that when he'd asked the guards to come to him with any information they could find about the missing prisoner's whereabouts, this sort of vague superstition had not been what he'd had in mind.

“Did he?” Ulfric managed to growl, with-- more diplomacy than he'd have been capable of yesterday.

“Yes,” Elof nodded, “Can I come with you, when we look?”

“No.”

“… Are you going to look south?”

“I am going to look everywhere.”

“But--,”

“But what?”

“The dream… I don't remember it too well, but there was a vibe.”

“A vibe,” Ulfric echoed, flatly.

“Yes.”

“Elof,” Ulfric said, “Even if your ' _vibe_ ' had been ten times as strong, one dream is not enough to convince me that a Thalmor who did not know that the Rift was to be signed over to the Empire would flee south, not north, to Solitude, Morthal or his Embassy, when he was free.”

Elof looked miserable.

“My battlemage is scrying for him. My guards are searching Eastmarch for him. When I hear something more substantial, that is when, if he has not been caught, I will leave Windhelm and hunt him down myself.”

“But--,”

“Dismissed, lad.”

With dragging steps, Elof left.

Ulfric went back to brooding, mood black, aware that he was obsessing more over one missing prisoner than said prisoner's questionably useful knowledge justified. It grew blacker still when Brunwulf ambushed him.

“Now the war's halted, Jarl Ulfric,” Brunwulf said, before Ulfric could tell him he was too busy for this, “There are pressing matters that need attending to. The dark elves--”

Ulfric did not want to hear about the dark elves.

“… slums need attention. They're suffering... winter is brutal, and too many... not enough wood even to warm their homes… and outside the city, bandits...”

Patiently, Ulfric waited for this nonsense to end.

After a minute, he could take no more of it.

“If they're suffering that much,” Ulfric said, bluntly, cutting Brunwulf off, “Tell them to go back to Morrowind. It has been long since the Argonians left their lands. It has been longer still since the ash rains stopped. No one makes them stay, if they are truly unhappy here.”

Brunwulf looked a bit disgusted and very, very tired.

“Jarl Ulfric, they live in Windhelm. Many have done so now for as long or longer than any Nord. They were accepted by your father. This is their home. They are your people, too.”

It galled him, that Brunwulf Free Winter would use his father's name to shake him. It galled him more that the Nord probably had known Ulfric's father better than Ulfric ever had.

“My people?" Ulfric said, darkly, _"My people_ would lift a blade in their Jarl's defense when he rallied them to war. When he stood against injustice, _his people_ would have answered to his cause. And when it was threatened, those who truly thought Skyrim their homeland would _defend_ it.”

“The Decree of Monument--”

“Allows them to live in Skyrim without being driven forth from her like the squatters that they are.”

Brunwulf's fists clenched and slowly unclenched.

“Is there no mercy in you? Do you never wonder what we would have done, had the Great War had been lost? Had you had been a refugee--,”

“Had I been driven from my homeland by elves, my actions would have mirrored Ysgramor of old. Had I been driven forth by flood or flame, I would have walked until my feet bled to return to her the _moment_ the land of my forefathers was once more livable. They stay because they do not have to fight here to live, because it is _we_ who spill our blood defending this land and them, and because a life of slovenly servitude among those who despise them suits them more than a life of hardship and pride. So do not tell me they are my people. You disgrace the children of Skyrim who truly are.”

"You think they do not live in hardship? Have you seen the Grey Quarter, Jarl Ulfric?"

Ulfric was silent.

"Even for those that have been crushed enough by our intolerance to feel they have no place here, where do they have to go? They have been taxed. They live in poverty. Most of them cannot afford the journey, and the few of them who can lack the training they need in the arts of war to survive it.”

There was an _unfair_ , unspoken, in there somewhere, and _unjust_.

His arm was strong as a bulwark, but Brunwulf's heart was soft as curds.

“Show me the dark elf,” Ulfric said, measured and even, “who tried to learn the arts of war and show me the Nord who would not teach him before you ask me to pity them for such ignorance. They choose not to learn, and so they pay in gold what they refuse to pay in blood. Such is the price of neutrality, when they choose to live in a land at war.”

Brunwulf had no answer to that.

Ulfric dismissed him.

An hour later, Galmar reported that Elof was missing from his post and had, from the look of it, gone looking for the elf.

Gone, without orders, without friends, with only the most basic supplies--

“What should I do, Jarl Ulfric?” Galmar said.

“Find him,” Ulfric ordered. And then, because-- why?

Because the boy's older brother had been seventeen, and died for Ulfric's cause?

Because there was a line of petitioners from Windhelm and from the outlying towns waiting to be heard because the war was on hold, and they required a level of tact, of patience, that Ulfric was incapable, at this moment, of giving them?

Because a small part of him believed enough in _nine_ Divines to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the boy's dream had been true?

“Saddle my horse. When I find the boy, I will have him cutting firewood until his _limbs fall off_.”

\--O--

A towering fortress loomed in the distance.

Ondolemar frowned at it. An unmistakable landmark, Fort Morvunskar, but he'd been under the impression the crumbling ruin was occupied by mages, these days, not thieves.

“You looking to join them, brother?” a voice said, from behind him. “You'd do better not to. Not if the purity of the Altmer bloodline matters to you. They worship Dibella quite… enthusiastically… in there, so I've heard.”

Ondolemar turned, frowning, to see an Altmer… hunter? A wooden bow was strapped across his back, and three rabbits hung from his belt. A knife hung at his side. He did not wear the leather favored by thieves-- though his clay-colored leather did glimmer with some sort of enchantment. Still, he cared about bloodlines, and he did not seem hostile.

“I am not,” Ondolemar said, relaxing slightly.

“What are you doing here, then, in these parts?”

“Hunting.”

“You don't really look like you're dressed for hunting.”

“Do I not?”

“Not really. What are you hunting?”

Ondolemar narrowed his eyes.

“You're awfully inquisitive, aren't you?”

“In these parts, it pays to be.”

The hunter had a professional air. He was experienced, too. His feet did not slip on the treacherous snow, and though his arms were bare, he did not shiver. Was he an agent of the Dominion, spying on Windhelm? It would not have surprised Ondolemar. He had the look of someone who might know his way around these parts.

“… I am looking for a group of thieves,” Ondolemar said, after a short pause.

“Thieves?” the other Altmer echoed.

“The Summerset Shadows.”

Recognition flickered in the hunter's eyes, followed by wariness.

“You know them, I see,” Ondolemar observed. “Where are they?”

The hunter hesitated.

“I'm… not sure I should say. I've been informed that their leader is brutal. He'll kill those who approach him lightly. He'll also kill those who tell people too lightly of his whereabouts. I'm worried about you, and me. Why are you hunting him?”

Not an agent of the Dominion, then. They would not fear a cutthroat. It was unfortunate.

“My reasons need not concern you. I can assure you, however, that I am capable of protecting myself from any mere thief. I am a Justiciar of the Aldmeri Dominion, albeit one operating disguised, given the territory I am in.”

A short pause.

“I doubt the Summerset Shadows serve Talos.”

“Whether they do or not is not your concern… what is your name?”

“Linwe.”

“Linwe,” Ondolemar said. “All I require from you that you tell me as much as you can about that group of thieves, and as much as you can also of where their leader is to be found.”

Another pause.

“What are you going to do to him?”

“Kill him,” Ondolemar said. “Regretful though it is, to spill the blood of one of Alinor's children. But the practices of that group are abhorrent. Their very name marks them as dissidents. Naturally, they need to be terminated.”

The hunter bent, fiddling with a bootstrap. Ondolemar watched him deliberate. He did not do so for long. What deliberation could there be anyway, between the questionable gratitude he'd receive from aiding one cutthroat compared to the reward he would receive from helping an officer of the Aldmeri Dominion?

“Alright, I'll take you to him.”

Ondolemar rewarded him with a smile.

\--O--

Elof had borrowed a horse, Ulundil said, an hour ago.

Stolen it, Ulfric thought, brow black, was a better word. Ulfric did not make a habit of flogging his men, but when he caught up with his errant soldier, he'd be very tempted to make an exception.

\--O--

West, Linwe led him, along what was a deer track through the mountains at best.

“You seem uneasy,” Ondolemar observed.

“I was hunting earlier. I happened to annoy a Spriggan. I think I've outdistanced it, but you never know with those beasts.”

“Unwise of you.”

“I worked that out for myself, brother.”

“Ondolemar,” Ondolemar said.

A swift smile, and the mer walked on. Once, a dragon flew overhead. Both of them froze, and the beast flew on, oblivious. When a timber wolf showed itself, snarling, Linwe finished it with one powerful, clean thrust through the jaw. Competent indeed.

“What brought you to Skyrim?” Ondolemar said idly, around noon.

“A boat.”

“Quaint.”

“In all seriousness, I came perhaps three centuries ago. I was a young mer in those days. There were rumors about that I'd sullied my bloodline with a servant of the Imperial ambassador. I hadn't, but I couldn't take the sneers. I took a boat to the farthest crag I could from our illustrious homeland, and never looked back.”

Glib, that story. Too glib. There were many reasons to lie to the Justiciars of the Dominion, though, and so Ondolemar would let it pass.

A cave loomed in the distance.

“Wait here,” Linwe said. “I've… well, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I sell the Summerset Shadows furs, sometimes. They know me. I'll check if their leader is in there. I assume you don't want to waste your time going in there unless you can get him?”

“Naturally. If you are thinking of alerting them, however--”

“I'm dead,” Linwe finished, an ironic twist to his smile.

“As long as you know. Auri-El be with you, brother.”

“Auri-El be with you also,” Linwe agreed, and left.

Ondolemar leaned against an outcrop, patiently waiting. An hour, he would give it, he decided, when Linwe was lost inside the blackness of the cave. No more. Then he would assume the hunter had died, and investigate the cave himself.

\--O--

“Yes,” Aeri said, “There was a mage that came yesterday. He was looking for Altmer thieves, he said, though I'm sure he was just checking I didn't know what his kind were up to. I told him to move on. Even if he wasn't, the high elves killed my father in the Great War. No goldskin bastard will get a warm welcome from me. No elf of any sort. Pointy-ear, I mean.”

Her hands twisted nervously.

Ulfric watched her, and wondered if he had spent too much time away from his people after all. Was his contempt of elves so widely known, were his people so afraid of _him_ , that they felt the need to speak of them so viciously in his hearing just to be safe? He put the thought aside, to be pondered later.

“Did anyone ride through here, perhaps an hour ago?”

“There was one soldier, but he didn't stop. He just took the bridge, like he had wolves on his trail.”

Ulfric exchanged a look with Galmar, thanked Aeri, and rode on.

\--O--

The first thing Ondolemar heard were the hoof-beats.

Lightning flickered in his left hand as he whirled about, drawing his dagger with his right, to see-- A Stormcloak soldier, riding hard, and Elof was _very, very lucky_ that Ondolemar had good eyesight because otherwise that lightning would have been tossed at his chest. A few moments later, the boy had pulled abreast, and had dismounted.

The horse snorted uneasily, pawing.

"If you are here to arrest me--,"

“You're alive,” Elof said.

Ondolemar eyed him doubtfully, feeling flat-footed.

“Astutely observed.”

A hasty step towards him, swiftly checked.

“I dreamed you'd died.”

“The thought should not be one that would devastate a Stormcloak.”

“I dreamed you'd been stabbed and died," Elof continued, ignoring that, "and I _didn't know who to tell_ and then I kept hearing that you were getting things thrown at you and that a vampire had eaten you and I _wasn't allowed to visit_.”

The boy's voice was rising dangerously. Fifteen, Ondolemar reminded himself. Fifteen and a fool who'd thought a handful of caustic barbs and a tolerance born of boredom meant that they were friends. Ondolemar stepped towards him, banishing his lightning.

“Well, now you have reassured yourself that I am alive, take what comfort you can from it, and leave. This place is not safe for,” _inexperienced fools,_ “Nords like you.”

"Are you worried about me?"

_Yes._

"No."

"I've been cutting wood. I'm actually  _really strong_ now."

"When I need wood chopped, I will remember you. I am currently intending to chop up something rather more sentient."

"I'm not--,"

Ondolemar plucked the reigns of the horse up from the snow, and thrust them towards Elof.

"Scram, brat, and tell your Jarl that I intend to--,"

Ondolemar broke off, abruptly, as Elof moved towards him, snow crunching beneath his boots, eyes wide and arms outstretched, and if this was a _hug, so help him he would_ \--

Not only from Elof's feet, that crunching.

A slow thought, seconds in coming.

Ondolemar turned. Turned, and was knocked aside by Elof, who--

A moment of dissociation. Of numbness. Wide, the boy's eyes. Impossibly wide, as he hung there, impaled on a cruel, shining blade. Linwe wrenched his sword free with a curse. Elof collapsed, wheezing, the snow beneath him turning crimson.

Ondolemar threw the first fireball before he thought to ask himself why those queer, shallow gasps actually mattered. Threw one, and threw more, and realised what he should have realised the moment those stones had directed him east, into this Altmer's company.

A dangerous dance, he was caught in.

Linwe had the agility of a thief, and fought for his life.

Ondolemar had experience, and-- what? Just what was one supposed to feel, when a Nord lay dying? Not this. He laughed, suddenly, because Ulfric Stormcloak had been right. If he lived, all that would be waiting was reeducation. When had it mattered to him, when men died? When had they started being stupid enough to try dying for him?

When his magic ran out, he was going to be impaled anyway. He could size up a mark well enough. Linwe was a better swordsman, and he was dodging too many of Ondolemar's spells. The brat-- why had he so stupidly intervened?

“You can still save yourself, you know,” Linwe smiled.

“The Dominion does not treat with dissidents like you.”

“Doesn't it?”

“If it does, it should not.”

“Did the human mean that much to you?”

Ondolemar launched a lightning bolt at him.

“I think it is you who shows dissidence now, not I,” Linwe laughed.

“'Think?' You, who would strike a Justiciar from behind, would claim to _think_?”

“I thought it was quite a shrewd strategy, actually. It was supposed to save me the trouble of trying to chase down a mage likely a lot more fond of running backwards and circling away and _not staying still_ than I am.”

“Forgive me if I do not feel like being stabbed by a traitor.”

“You know, I don't know that I can.”

Ondolemar's feet slipped beneath him in the treacherous snow; Linwe darted forth. A swift scuffle, a blow barely deflected with his dagger-- inadequate for the task, but better than nothing-- and Ondolemar circled back, healing his bleeding side.

“You're getting tired.”

“You are projecting.”

“I am,” Linwe started, and then, suddenly, Linwe's eyes were widening, looking at-- something, behind him. Ondolemar side-stepped, not taking his eyes off his enemy, maneuvering closer to Elof.

There was a wail, high and dangerous, and a vaguely humanoid form floated towards them, leaves where her hair should have been, all oak and vines and madness, glowing green. Her rage was the rage of nature disturbed, indiscriminate, terrible, and radiant. Her arms spread wide, and Linwe charged her, face twisting, terrified.

A moment later, Ondolemar felt why himself. His life. Like a vampire she feasted on it, and it was instinct more than logic that made him summon a ward to block that dreadful pull. Small wonder what threat he posed had been immediately dismissed.

Of all the lies Linwe had told--

Could not the Spriggan also have been one of them?

Or was this mercy, sent by Auri-El, to distract his enemy?

He could have run.

He should have run, or stabbed Linwe's unguarded back.

He was kneeling above Elof, one hand holding his ward-- barely-- to cover both of them, the other working to staunch the widening pool of blood. Helpless. He was helpless, as he'd not felt since-- best not to think on that now, perhaps. Why did he know but _one spell_ for closing wounds? Why had he _never_ _bothered to learn how to heal his friends_? Because every Altmer was born with the magic and the knowledge in them to heal themselves was the logical answer. Ondolemar cursed, thrusting it aside.

“You...” Elof mumbled, around a mouthful of blood, “'s fine. I'm… Sovngarde...”

“It is nothing of the sort,” Ondolemar snapped.

Linwe was tiring. So was the Spriggan. The horse was already dead.

Which of them would tire first?

If he moved the boy, he'd tear that wound further open. If he left him-- Ondolemar would not. He would kill whoever won this battle, and in the meantime, he would--

A weak hand closed about his wrist.

“Y'should go.”

“Do not presume to tell an officer of the Dominion what to do.”

“I don… wntchtdie.”

“I do not fear death. Aetherius awaits, as Sovngarde awaits you.”

“D'you… think't does?”

The light in the boy's eyes was fading.

“Yes,” Ondolemar said, harshly. “You fell in battle. Your ancestors will be proud.”

There was thunder in the distance. A storm, then. Linwe was shouting; someone else, too. Did Spriggans speak? He didn't know. Elenwen would have. She had files on everything. His ears pounded from the strain of maintaining the ward, and the tendrils of magic binding his side closed threatened to split open. Dark flecks flashed in the corners of his sight. Bad signs all.

"I miss'd you, when I w's chopping," the boy slurred, "The othrs said I was a mongrel, when I said y'weren't so bad."

“Fool,” Ondolemar said roughly. "Stubborn, _stupid_  fool."

“M'm s'rry,” Elof whispered. “Can you…” a hand twitched, vaguely searching, “I can't see. I don't... 'm scared of th' dark. ”

Ondolemar's hand was slick with blood. The boy smiled anyway, once he found it.

“Th'nks...”

Ondolemar's hand clenched, involuntarily.

Elof smiled vaguely upwards.

"I dreamed this, y'know... 'm glad it wsn't you."

_Stupid. Stupid fool._

"I hope... I hope Stend'rr lets m'vis't, once you're dead too..."

Something stuck in this throat, blocking it. His chest burned.

 _How could he?_ Ondolmar thought-- thought, and could not say.

_How could he, when we will erase not just the lives of man, but his afterlife, his soul, and the very memory of his existence?_

A heartbeat longer, that grip lasted.

Then it slackened, and the boy's head fell back, eyes flat.

He was gone.


	20. The Enemy of My Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Enemy of My Enemy

Elof was dead.

Strange, that thought. It twisted a knife of-- _something_ inside him, cold and sore, that he did not want to think about. Did not have _time_ to think about, now. Later, he would. Later, he might even understand it. Easier though, now, to focus on holding the ward. On Linwe, and the dissidents who'd joined him. On the spriggan. On standing.

Intellectual exercises all.

He retained enough sense-- barely-- to whisper Arkay's Blessing over the boy, when he freed himself from that pathetically still clasp and closed those empty eyes. Arkay's Law would have to wait until he could find a priest, and Linwe was dead.

Ondolemar grasped that goal, _focused_ on it with his entire being until it drowned out all else, and limped towards the mer with murderous intent. There was no stealth when one was surrounded by a glowing, opaque barrier of blue light. There was no grace, when one's side was leaking blood and one's body felt heavy as lead. But there was willpower and pride, and there was the Dragonborn's dagger. For now, Ondolemar would trust to its sharpness.

“Don't you think,” Linwe panted, swinging wildly, “that we should put aside our differences until the spriggan is dead, Justiciar?”

“No,” Ondolemar said, simply, and swung.

\--O--

When Ulfric Stormcloak crested the hill, following the trail of churned-up hoof-prints left by his errant soldier, chaos greeted him. First, there was a spriggan, which had no business being away from its forest at all. Then there were the bandits she was attacking-- high elves, by their height-- several of whom had already died. Then there were the bodies. A bear, a horse, and Ulfric hoped that Elof was _unconscious,_ not dead, where he was lying. And then there was the Justiciar, dressed like a mage, fighting another elf-- the bandit chief?-- who was dividing his attention between the Justiciar's blade and the spriggan's raking claws. Both looked exhausted.

“Which side do we fall in with?” Galmar asked, hefting his battle-axe.

“Between vagrants, Thalmor, and beasts?” Ulfric asked, dismounting, and drawing his sword.

His men dismounted too, following his lead.

“We take them all?” Galmar grinned.

“We take them all. Talos fights with us,” Ulfric said, and charged.

\--O--

It was Linwe who noticed the Stormcloak attack first. The moment he did, he swore and took to his heels, making for the cave. Ondolemar followed him-- of course he did-- allowing his ward to dissipate when the spriggan's life-draining spells no longer leached off him. Behind him, there was a scream as one of the dissidents tried to follow, and was impaled on the spriggan's claws.

Hopefully, she would also delay the Stormcloaks long enough for Ondolemar to finish this, and escape.

He did not look behind him to check.

An icy tunnel stretched before them, thick with snow.

“You know,” Linwe said, leaping a boulder, “I think--,”

“We have already established, I believe,” Ondolemar panted, “that you do not.”

The snow clung to his feet, hampering him. A table loomed, to the right. Two thieves rose from it, drawing steel knives.

“Don't,” Linwe spat, barreling past them, “Cynion. Hrallion, we've got bigger problems than the idiot chasing me. Stormcloaks are here.”

“Stormcloaks?” one dissident echoed, dismayed.

"Idiot?" Ondolemar snarled.

“Stormcloaks," Linwe said, ignoring him, "Get the gold and whatever other goods you can, and get out the back entrance. _Hurry_ , s'wits! I'll be damned if I loose the rewards of three _years_ of heists to the Bear of Eastmarch's worthless claws. Get a move on! Tell everyone to grab what they can and run.”

The dissidents did. Young, they looked, and painfully inexperienced. Ondolemar would have advised them to skip gathering their treasure, and trusted to the chance of making more gold eventually in whatever scant decades they had left to them before they were executed.

The snowy tunnel gave way to stone.

An old fort, long forgotten? Ondolemar neither knew nor cared.

Linwe was fleeing towards a stairwell, now. There were potions scattered about, thick and red. Healing? He rather thought so. Ondolemar considered his current state objectively, and wasted precious seconds snatching one on the way past, and downing it. A worthwhile investment; he felt much of his lost strength come rushing back. Less welcome was the white glow of light around Linwe which warned him that the other mer had done the same.

“You really should not leave those lying about, for intruders to find,” Ondolemar said.

“Believe me, I won't be repeating the mistake.”

“No. You won't.”

Shouting above them, in the caves, and the ring of steel against steel.

Then, a Shout, which released a shower of pebbles and dust.

“Oh, for Nocturnal's sake--,” Linwe swore.

The stairs were steep, and slippery with moss. Linwe took them at a sprint, and Ondolemar, following, wished heartily he'd paid more attention to spells of levitation and slow-falling when he'd been stationed in Morrowind. He could have used both, now. Another dissident stood at the bottom. As the sight of him, he took a step towards Ondolemar, knives drawn. He went down with Ondolemar's blade through his throat, and a lightning bolt in his shoulder.

Two turns, and they stood in a complex that looked like it might once have been a prison.

“You know you are no match for me,” Linwe said, panting, “But together, we might be one for the Bear of Eastmarch. I could use a battlemage.”

“You should have made that offer before you tried to stab me in the back. Who knows? I might have decided I'd _like_ to sacrifice my soul to Nocturnal like you have, in return for the privilege of living in an icy cave and robbing corpses for a living.”

“That's the problem with you Thalmor. You're so--,”

“Averse to losing our souls?”

“Narrow-minded.”

More Shouting, somewhere distant.

“Who are they coming for? Me or you, I wonder?” Linwe panted.

“Why limit your field to merely 'or's? 'And's are an option too. Torsten sends his regards, by the way.”

“Tell me this is not all for that _wretched locket--_ ”

Ondolemar launched a lightning bolt at Linwe. The mer swore as it struck his shoulder, and hastened his steps. A door loomed before them. Linwe reached it moments before him, and slammed it in his face. A thud behind it suggested a bar was being hastily put in place.

“Give my regards to the Bear, won't you?” Linwe's disembodied voice said. “I'm sure you'll be seeing him before I do.”

Ondolemar kicked the door, and succeeded in bruising his toes. Badly. He cursed, and launched a fireball at the door. A better option. The door shivered, but held firm. A soft pad of footsteps on the other side told him Linwe was retreating. Ondolemar cursed, fluently, and launched a second, and a third, until--An unstoppable force slammed against him, tossing him bodily into the door. Dizzily, he turned, and--

“Ulfric,” he managed.

The Nord's face was alight with fury.

“You.”

“Me. Do me a favor, would you, and help me get the door open before you arrest me?”

It was the dizziness. It had to be. Only when mildly concussed would Ondolemar of Alinor have asked Ulfric Stormcloak for aid. The Nord looked like he shared his disbelief. And yet-- and yet. Another strange thought. Given the choice between Linwe running free and asking Ulfric Stormcloak for aid, even sane, Ondolemar suspected he'd have chosen the latter. What did that mean, he wondered?

“A Thalmor expects--” Ulfric started.

“Expects, no. Would be _pleased_ , yes. He killed Elof. I want him dead.”

Something flickered in Ulfric's eyes.

“How do I know that you did not kill the boy yourself?”

The knife of-- something, twisted again. His chest hurt. Ondolemar quashed-- whatever it was, quashed it again when it persisted, and ignored the voice that whispered--

_Had you turned sooner--_

_Had you been crueler, when he visited you--_

_Had you not let yourself be pushed aside--_

“You do not, naturally,” he said, eyes burning. “You never will. What witnesses could you ask, since the boy was _on his own_ , without _any soldiers aiding him_ when he was _stupid_ enough to come looking for a Thalmor bleating about visions and fate? But it is hardly _my fault_ that your security is _so abysmal_ and your standards _so lax_ that such things are _allowed to happen_ _as a matter of course_.”

Ulfric's eyes flashed.

Ondolemar turned back to the door, and concentrated on-- breathing, and mastering that irrational, overwhelming and utterly pointless tide of fury, and ignoring the voice that whispered that taking his eyes off the enraged Jarl behind him right now was a suicidal move at best. The door mocked him. Ondolemar launched another fireball at it, and had the satisfaction of seeing a patch of it char black.

Thirty seconds passed. The door smouldered.

No sword pierced his chest.

“Where is Galmar?”

“Fighting a spriggan. He will join us soon enough.”

Ondolemar launched another fireball.

“Have you ever read the work, 'A Hypothetical Treachery'?”

“I thought you did not like books.”

“It is a play.”

A slight pause. Another fireball.

“No,” Ulfric said.

“The moral of it is that when their goals align, and cannot be reached alone, enemies should put aside their differences long enough to achieve them before killing each other.”

“I will not put aside my differences with the Thalmor.”

“I am not asking you for a truce with the Thalmor. I would not, even if I did have that level of authority within my government. I am asking for a truce with myself. Ondolemar.”

“You are a Justiciar.”

“Whom you have not run through yet.”

“Because you have information that I need.”

“A diamond of knowledge for you, then. Linwe, whom I pursue, has been a thief for more than three years and since he is a coward the dead, not the living, are his marks. He has targeted the Halls of the Dead of Windhelm more than once, defiling the resting places of your dead.”

“Even were that true, I do not _need_ to work with you to kill one bandit.”

“Do you not? And yet he has been robbing your people for three years, and until now you and your guards have sat and done… what, exactly? I do believe the answer to that is _nothing_.”

The sword was at his back. Ondolemar heard its hiss, but, once more, he did not feel its sting.

Odd.

Ondolemar tossed another fireball, and finally, finally it blasted a hole in the mouldering door. He thrust his hand through it, and tried lifting the bar. A heavy thing, and heavier because of the awkwardness of the angle. If Linwe was hiding there, and cut his hand off at the wrist, Ondolemar would personally make sure--

“Step aside,” Ulfric said.

“Why?”

“Because I have more strength in one toe than you have in your entire being.”

Ondolemar paused in his efforts to glare at him.

“Would you care to wager any great sum on that?”

A frustrated noise.

“I will lift the bar.”

Ondolemar paused, frowning.

“When this is done, though, you will face judgment… Ondolemar. Do not try running.”

Ondolemar withdrew his hand, and stepped aside.

True to his word, Ulfric did lift it.

“I notice you used your arm, not your toe,” Ondolemar said, snidely.

Ulfric sent him a dark look, and kicked the door open.

It fell inwards, to-- a bedroom. A bedroom, with some chests in the corner and no one in it at all, which meant that there was an exit hidden somewhere, or the hand of Nocturnal was on him, and the Altmer was hidden in plain sight in a patch of shadow. Ondolemar advanced into the room, summoning the simplest of flames. A torch would have been better, but they'd do.

“Your claimed grave-robber does not seem to be here,” Ulfric observed.

After a minute or two of searching, Ondolemar was forced to agree.

There was an exit then, somewhere. Ondolemar dragged the bed aside. Nothing. A closet and a chest stood against the far wall. Ondolemar advanced on them, menacingly. No false bottom to the chest. No tunnel beneath it either, when he dragged it aside. The closet, he cast doors-down on the floor, and-- there it was. A false door, locked. It would not stay so long. Ondolemar brought his dagger to bear on the hinges, removing the pins.

“How did you escape my cells?” Ulfric said, watching him work.

“I crawled through the bars. I warned you I would, if you did not narrow them.”

“And for the barracks, I suppose you simply swallowed an invisibility potion--”

“Vampire dust,” Ondolemar corrected him, with a sharp smile. “You left some, when you came back from burning her. Swallowing it makes one invisible, briefly.”

“… Why?”

“Because Auri-El willed it to be so.”

The last of the pins was removed. The door sagged limply. A cold tunnel trailed downwards, giving way to snow, and, unless he missed his guess, the wastes of Eastmarch. Ondolemar swore, and made to move towards the tunnel anyway. Five minutes, Linwe had on him at best. A five minute lead, he could--

A cold blade at his throat stopped him.

“I think,” Ulfric said, “That we both know that bandit is long gone from here.”

“I want him dead.”

“I doubt that running full-tilt into the wastes of Skyrim, weak as you are, will result in that outcome.”

“Is that concern I hear?”

“Concern for information lost, perhaps.”

“Another gem for you, then. He is intelligent. He requires a quick escape. He will be making for your horses. If you do not want to loose them, and if you want to save the poor fool you left guarding them, you had best hurry up. Assuming-- though perhaps I am being overly generous-- that you were intelligent enough to leave anyone. He is a good swordsman, Linwe, and better at stabbing people in the back.”

Dead silence.

“I was being overly generous, it seems. If you want to save your horses-- because he will probably hamstring the ones he does not steal-- we should run.”

A moment, the blade hesitated.

“How expensive are horses in Eastmarch, these days?”

A sound not unlike a bull snorting.

Then Ulfric cursed, sheathed his blade, and sprinted past him.

Victory, it seemed, was his. Ondolemar smiled grimly, and followed.

\--O--

It took less than five minutes to reach the rocky outcrop Ulfric had left his horses.

He rounded the corner, skidding on the snow, in time to see--

Galmar, bleeding heavily, shrewdly circling away, from Linwe, who'd clearly downed a healing potion or two since the last time Ulfric had seen him, and who, hampered though he was by a knapsack over his shoulder, fought like a dervish. A worthy enemy, it looked like, if he'd stay to fight. One horse was bleeding from the right foreleg. Ulfric charged him with a roar.

“Two onto one is not fair odds,” Linwe complained, dancing sideways. “This isn't sporting.”

“Neither is disabling my horses,” Ulfric said.

“A fair point. I--,” he cried out, as a bolt of lightning caught him on the shoulder and whirled about. “The Justiciar? You are working _with_ the Justiciar?”

“No,” Galmar scoffed.

“Temporarily,” Ulfric corrected him.

Galmar sent him a look of flat disbelief. Linwe mirrored it, then danced to the side, positioning Galmar between him and the Thalmor. The Thalmor, wisely, aimed no more of his destructive spells and diverted his energy into circling about instead. Low on magicka, perhaps, or perhaps he just knew that his fragile truce would not survive hitting the wrong target.

“I really don't have any quarrel with you, Ulfric Stormcloak,” Linwe said, “I came to Skyrim and took up residence in your lands, in fact, because I _like_ the fact that you're stopping the Thalmor from operating freely, and killing us dissidents whenever they feel like it. So I thought. But here you are, working with a Justiciar, and the High Justiciar of Skyrim, at that. You disappoint me.”

“ _However_ will he survive the loss of the good opinion of a cutthroat thief, I wonder?” the Thalmor sneered, before Ulfric could respond. “Emotionally, he will be crippled for life. I will be surprised if he can muster up the willpower to lift his blade again.”

“Shut up,” Linwe snarled.

“ _Both_ of you shut up, and focus on fighting,” Galmar growled.

For all of a minute, Linwe did. Then:

“Do you know why I hate the Thalmor?”

“Does it have something to do with your impending demise?” Ondolemar sneered.

A powerful blow, from Linwe, and Ulfric's arm rattled with the force of blocking it. Galmar retaliated with a mighty swing of his battle-axe that sent the high elf staggering to the side.

“I had a sister, once, Justiciar. We lived in High Rock. She married a Breton a century or so back, and had a child. He died. Men do. She raised my nephew alone. Then the Thalmor came. She didn't approve of my being a thief, so I didn't visit very often. Do you know how it felt, receiving a letter of inheritance from a courier and finding out that assassins had slit her throat in the night, and burned her house down with her sleeping child inside it alive, just because she'd married a man?”

“Was this before or after you came to Skyrim three centuries ago because you'd slept with an Imperial?” the Thalmor asked, cynically.

“It was the _servant_ of an Imperial, and it was _rumored_ , not true. And that story was a lie anyway.”

“Whereas _this_ one, naturally, is as pure and unvarnished as the sermons of St Vivec.”

“… I've known people it has happened to. It _could_ have been me. And if it had, if you'd been told to carry out that order, you'd have followed it, wouldn't you? To the letter.”

The Thalmor gave that his consideration.

“I would, perhaps, have made some effort to kill the child cleanly, so it did not burn alive.”

Fury burned in Linwe's eyes. He struck, fast and furious, but his rage made him incautious. Ulfric bleed freely from his right shoulder, but he carved another hole in the bandit's side.

“Helping or hindering, the baiting?” Ulfric said, to Galmar.

“Talos knows,” Galmar shrugged.

Both high elves ignored them.

“Do you know what your problem is?” Linwe panted.

“You,” the Thalmor said. “Don't worry, though. You won't be my problem for much longer.”

Another blow, this time directed at Galmar. The force of the parry sent him staggering back a step.

“If you're on our side, you could get in and help, elf,” Galmar said.

“Your honor would survive my fighting by your side?”

“If it survived a lightning bolt, it will survive an honest blade.”

“He won't,” Linwe sneered, “He's no swordsman. The moment he got close enough, he knows I'd run him through. Isn't that so, Justiciar? Because we both know that even if you were lucky enough _once_ to have had a Stormcloak toss himself on my blade to save you, that level of stupidity is not something that is widespread among the Stormcloak ranks.”

Ulfric brought his blade down with the fury of Talos in his arm, and Linwe stumbled back, winded.

“Come now, Jarl Ulfric. Calm down. I didn't _intend_ to kill your soldier. I avoid killing my marks at all, when I can. I'm not the Dark Brotherhood. I only _meant_ to stab a _Thalmor_. What harm is there in that?”

“None,” Ulfric allowed, “And had you succeeded, I might even have rewarded you, had you brought me his head. You failed, however. Moreover, while I can tolerate you killing the living, since there is no shame in dying in battle, stealing from the dead is unforgivable.”

“They're _dead_. It's not like they need it. They don't take anything with them when they go.”

Ulfric did not dignify that with a reply.

Galmar's axe slammed against the elf's side.

“Oh, for-- Nocturnal take you all,” Linwe spat, and struck out in a whirlwind of fury.

Ulfric blocked, and blocked again.

“I would not have thought, myself,” the Thalmor said, closer now and advancing warily, knife drawn, “that your Prince would want such loud and boorish souls, but I bow to your superior knowledge. You undoubtedly know her far better than I.”

True to his word, Linwe did turn on the Thalmor the moment he was within range. The elf's spells blocked the worst of it, however, and when he retaliated, though only one of his blows actually _hit_ , his knife scythed through Linwe's armor like a sickle through dried wheat. Only one man in Skyrim, according to Ulfric's spies, was able to forge a blade with an edge like that.

Ulfric would need to have a word with Einar Dragonborn, it seemed, about just who he should, and should not, be selling his weaponry to.

It was a short, nasty fight, after that.

Ulfric struck the killing blow; a clean, sweeping decapitation.

The Thalmor reached for the knapsack.

“Restrain him,” Ulfric said, to Galmar, “And remove his dagger.”

“Our truce--,”

“Is ended, now he is dead,” Ulfric said, firmly. “Do you intend to cooperate, Justiciar, or do you intend to try running?”

A short, reluctant pause. Stalling, Ulfric thought; the elf was healing the worst of his injuries while he pretended to consider it. Ulfric let him. He had not the look of someone who intended to flee, and the walk back to Windhelm would be a cold one. A moment more, and the thought was confirmed. The elf offered the knife to Galmar, hilt first.

“Smart,” Galmar said, taking it.

“I thought so. Given the ease with which I walked out last time, I do not think your cells will hold me long. Why would I risk your axe, then, or my neck, just to avoid a day or two in them?”

Galmar bound his arms behind his back with more force than was strictly necessary.

“Is there a locket, in that knapsack?” the high elf said.

“What locket, exactly, are you hoping to find?”

“… A silver one?” the elf said, sounding a damn sight too much like he was guessing.

Torsten had come to Ulfric every day for a week when Fjotli's body had been found. When her locket had been stolen, that count had doubled. Ulfric had a feeling, suddenly, that he knew _exactly_ who had been responsible for this elf's escape. Reassuring, since he could ensure that it would not happen again. Galling, because one of his own subjects-- and a Nordic subject at that-- had stabbed him in the back.

“Would it be Fjotli's locket, by any chance, that you are hoping is there?”

A delicate pause.

“I hope your mind is not leaping to illogical conclusions, Jarl Ulfric.”

“I very much doubt that there is anything illogical about the conclusions I am drawing right now.”

“Why would…?” Galmar started, and then, with sudden realisation, “Did that fish-gutting _skeever_ of a milk drinker actually--?”

“Search it,” Ulfric ordered.

The locket wasn't in the knapsack. It was around Linwe's neck.

Ulfric held it a moment, too tightly, and put it in the sack with the rest of the goods.

\--O--

The march back to Windhelm was a slow one.

Two of his men had fallen inside the caves, to high elf blades-- Finn, and Utgard. Their parents would need to be told, and cared for as best Ulfric could in their old age, if they needed it. Gringar was injured, but he would survive. Derk had not been struck, but he'd twisted an ankle falling on the snow. Tomorrow, Ulfric would send a squad to search the cave, secure any supplies, and burn the bodies of the dead high elves before their corpses could lure in necromancers and beasts.

For now, he tied his own dead to the backs of the horses, and began the journey back.

While he rode, Ulfric brooded.

Unwelcome, the truth that in half a day he had ended the source of an affront against his subjects that had persisted, unchecked, for three years. How many times in that time had his people come forward with such complaints, only to be dismissed by a Jarl whose eyes turned ever outwards, focusing on the war? How many crimes in that time had been allowed to continue unchecked? Unpunished? A strong arm made a strong ruler, yes, but what use was that arm if it refused to wield a shield, never sheathing its sword?

“What will you do with their bodies?” the Thalmor asked, jarring him from these unwelcome thoughts.

He was connected to Ulfric's saddle by a long rope. Long enough to have allowed him to fall back if he'd wanted to, but the Thalmor had chosen, instead, to walk abreast. _The Thalmor will treat with whatever government rules Skyrim,_ Elenwen had said, yesterday. It had sickened him, then.

It disturbed him now.

To think that the Thalmor thought he would treat with them willingly was repulsive.

To think that a part of him was going to feel regretful when he beheaded this one was more repulsive still.

“Your soldiers, I mean,” the Thalmor clarified, when he did not reply.

“They will go to the Halls of the Dead.”

A slight pause.

“I trust your halls are… well tended?”

“As well tended as any.”

He could not say, with Linwe's stolen goods beside him, that they were inviolate.

The elf made a dissatisfied noise.

“... In Markarth, there were… problems, with the local cult of Namira.”

The name meant nothing.

“Cannibals,” the elf clarified, reading his silence correctly, “The Halls of the Dead were… popular.”

“Not that you involved yourself in Markarth's internal politics, of course,” Ulfric said.

The Thalmor was silent, for a bit. Then:

"In Solitude, there were problems with necromancers."

“We have no problems of _either_ sort in Windhelm.”

A line between the elf's brows faded.

“… You have priests of Arkay?”

“We do.”

The elf nodded, more creases smoothing from his forehead. He did fall back, then.

They made Windhelm within the hour.

When everything that needed to be done had been done-- the families of the dead notified, the injured delivered to the healers, the missing belongings returned to the Halls of the Dead, and the Thalmor imprisoned once more-- Ulfric summoned Torsten Cruel-Sea to the throne room.

The man came.

"If this is about those ships--" Torsten started.

Wordlessly, Ulfric stood. Wordlessly, Ulfric put the locket down before him.

The man stiffened, touching it with a trembling hand.

“The thief's name was Linwe. He died by my hand.”

Gratitude, defiance, and stubborn pride blazed in Torsten's eyes, in equal measure.

If Ulfric asked him if he'd freed the Thalmor, the Nord would confess to it without remorse.

If Ulfric asked of him blood or gold as wergild for that crime, he would pay it.

If Ulfric cast him from Windhelm, Torsten would leave, and resent him ten times over.

“I understand,” Ulfric said, “Why you betrayed my trust. For the debt I owe you in failing to protect Fjotli-- for making you see your child leave this world before you-- I will forgive you. I warn you, however, and heed me well: Do not mistake my mercy for weakness. Do not betray me twice, Torsten Cruel-Sea. My debt to you is paid. I will not forgive you again.”

Fear flickered in Torsten's eyes, followed by hope unlooked for, and finally something hot and fierce.

Devotion.

“I will not, my Jarl. That I swear by Talos himself. The debt I owe you, I can never repay.”

\--O--

Ulfric drank, when Torsten had left him, with Galmar, and wondered, with three men dead and justice three years delayed, just how much of that gratitude he'd really earned. All of it, was Galmar's staunch assertion, accompanied by a firm clap on his shoulder. Sovngarde, the men had gone to. No use mourning that, though one could feel pity for those left behind. Talk turned, then, to other matters. Old wars, and old wounds. Of wars that would be fought, and had yet to come.

More mead, and Galmar began singing snatches of old battle songs.

Ulfric joined him, feeling his spirits lifting.

Perhaps that drink was what led him to wondering about would drive a man to kill himself for a Thalmor. It was certainly the drink that led him downstairs, once he'd drunk Galmar under the table, to ask the elf.

“I don't know,” Ondolemar said, when he did.

“I think you do know,” Ulfric said, swaying slightly. “I think you are lying.”

“Well, you are wrong. And if you are going to come down here smelling of mead, and, by the look of you, at least two parts drunk, you should have the decency to offer me something from Whiterun or Riften to help me endure it while you question me.”

“You want to drink?”

“Why not? I do not feel like being sober today.”

"You will not resort to your elf tongue?"

"Not unless you start asking me things for which Elenwen would electrocute me for a week or more for answering."

That did not seem too unreasonable. Ulfric had been electrocuted by Elenwen before too.

He called for a cask of Black-Briar Mead.

“Your hands are free,” he observed, when the elf uncorked one.

“They are. Your elderly, estimable battlemage, in his wisdom, has fitted me with a pair of bracers that were once popular among the Dunmeri slavers,” a bound arm waved at him, for emphasis, “They bind my magic, while allowing me full use of my hands. A step up from your crude measures, you will agree. You should consider upping his pay.”

Sober, Ulfric might have frowned.

Now, he merely sat on the stool.

"Talos has their souls in Sovngarde," he said, challenging.

If the elf was confused by who 'they' was, he didn't show it.

"I know," was all he said, pouring himself a bowl of mead, and draining it with a grimace.

Some of Ulfric's belligerence faded.

“You do not seem to like it,” Ulfric observed.

“A fact that should not surprise you, since it is only _slightly_ less unpalatable than Nordic Mead.”

"Not the mead. Sovngarde."

"Why should I like or dislike it? I do not know much about it, aside from the fact that Nords go there."

"It is a good place."

"I'm sure it is, for Nords."

"No elves are allowed."

"When I die, I'll be sure to tell Auri-El that if he tries to send me there."

Ulfric grunted approvingly.

"Why are you here?" the elf said.

"To find out why my soldier died for you."

"You would do better asking Talos, or Stendarr."

"I thought you did not believe in Talos."

"It is not that I don't believe Talos  _exists._ I just do not believe that the fact that at the moment he happens to be wielding a slice of Lorkhan's power is enough to earn him a place in the same pantheon as the Aedra. Believe it or not, there is a subtle distinction between the two."

"If he has divine power, and people worship him, why does he not deserve a place? What else is needed to make a god?"

"I don't know. _More."_

"Why?"

"Because if more wasn't, then the King of Worms, Dagoth Ur, and the Tribunal would have to get spots too. Our pantheons would get crowded."

"... Who are they?"

"Aedra."

"Not them. The others."

"Oh. Them. Dead mer, now."

Ulfric uncorked another bottle of mead.

"If they are dead elves, they are not gods."

"Exactly," Ondolemar nodded, approving, and poured himself another drink. "Now that no one worships them anymore, everyone  _sees_ how silly it was to do so in the first place."

There was something niggling, uncomfortable, in that friendly logic. Ulfric tried to work out what it was.

The high elf poured himself another bowl of mead, and began tapping a finger on the stone.

After his fifth bowl, the elf said, slurring slightly:

"Thank you, for killing Linwe and not running me through."

A pleasant warmth suffused him. Ulfric nodded, and poured the elf his sixth.

On his tenth, the elf sighed deeply.

"What ails you?" Ulfric said.

“I am pondering a conundrum.”

“What is your conundrum?”

One slender finger tapped a dirty cobblestone.

“This.”

"Why is one stone a problem?"

"It is a hypothetical, _metaphorical_ problem."

Ulfric frowned, which seemed to satisfy the elf.

“This stone is a problem. I do not like this stone, and so--,” a yellow hand covered the stone, “It is gone.”

“No it isn't. I can still see it.”

“Pretend you cannot,” the elf said, patiently.

Dubiously, Ulfric nodded.

“There is a hole in the floor, yes?”

“No, there isn't.”

“Pretend I have removed this stone.”

“That would certainly leave a hole.”

“Exactly. There is a hole. But say that I removed _all_ the stones, there would not be a hole.”

“Yes there would.”

“There would not be. The floor would just be dirt, not stone, and a bit lower.”

“You might be right,” Ulfric allowed. “I am not a mason.”

“I am not either, but I am still right. But anyway, let us say that I got _extremely_ drunk, drunker even than you like making me, and I ripped out this stone floor, and forgot, when I was sober, that it had ever existed. What would happen to the stones?”

“… They would sit wherever you put them.”

“What if I'd blown them up?”

“They would be blown up.”

“Exactly,” the elf nodded, “And if I had blown them up, and I could not remember them, would that matter, to the stones or to me?”

“It would.”

“Why?”

Childlike, the elf's gaze.

“Because the stones would be gone,” Ulfric said, bluntly.

“But what if they had never existed?”

“They did exist. I can see them.”

“That is the conundrum, isn't it?” the elf sighed. “Now, add to that the fact that I am only stuck inside the cell as long as the floor is made of stone.”

Ulfric took a swig of mead, and nodded.

“Now, I have been sentenced, for my father's debts, to stay in this cell until I die.”

“That seems unproductive.”

“Bear with it. It is a part of my conundrum.”

“… very well.”

“Thank you. Now, say that all I need to do to escape is to,” the elf tapped the floor again, “remove the stones. You see, of course, why I want to remove the stones."

"I do, yes."

“Mm. But now-- the final problem. I am starting to wonder if I do hate the stones, after all. I hate some of them, the ones that stub my toes when I pace, but some of them have pleasant patterns, and are warmer to step on. But to be free, I must remove them all, and the stones who know that worry because of it. They do not want to stop existing. The conundrum, then, is should I stay in my cell, because I feel bad for the stones, or should I remove them, because once they are gone I would not remember them and so that would not hurt me?"

“You should stay inside the cell,” Ulfric said, at last.

“Why? I don't like my cell.”

“Because once you die, you will get out anyway. The stone you destroy will cease to be.”

“But the stones are my jailors. I never asked to be put in the cell. I never deserved it.”

“The stones did not ask the mason to make them your floor, either. They suffer just as much as you.”

The elf seemed to ponder that, for a while.

“I think you may be right. But if you are right, I do not think Auri-El is very happy with me.”

“Ask him.”

“Ask him?” the elf echoed, as if this were a foreign concept.

“Mm. He is your ancestor, is he not? What father minds being bothered by his child?”

The elf looked dubious.

“… When I am sober, perhaps. I think he would not appreciate me much like this.”

“Talos would still speak to me like this.”

“ _Talos_ does not have standards.”

“Yes, he does.”

“No, he doesn't.”

The elf was mad. No, the Thalmor were mad. This one certainly looked it. He stared at the stone as if it were alive, and traced the same patterns over and over with one tapering finger.

“I have another conundrum.”

“Do you?”

“Mm. I bought a plot of land from the local Jarl, because I wanted to build my house on a hill.”

“You did?”

“No, but we are pretending... Where was I?"

"Your house."

"My house. Yes... Anyway, when I arrived on that hill, there was another house already standing there, and the family who lived there refused to move, claiming that they had as much right to the land as I.”

“Had they a bill of sale?”

“No. They had just lived there, they said, for generations.”

“They are squatters, then.”

 _“Exactly._ So, since they would not leave, I killed all of them, save those few who fled, swearing vengeance. But imagine, now, that a messenger comes, and offers me a letter that will tell me that a mile away there is another hill, unoccupied, that is _actually_ the one that belongs to me, and I _mistook_ the one I took by force? Is that something I wish to open?”

“Not really,” Ulfric said.

“Exactly.”

The high elf drew his knees up to his chin, and rested his head on them.

He looked miserable, poor devil. Ulfric said, bracingly:

“If you had the strength to take the first house, go back the Jarl and buy it, since none owned it by right, and those who dwelt there were not strong enough to contest your victory. Build on both hills.”

A soft laugh.

“I should, shouldn't I? That would make sense.”

“It is what I would do. Better to turn a wrong decision into a right one, once it has been made, than to labor forever against the endless waves of guilt and futility born of regretting and trying to correct an action that can never be undone.”

“… I like that logic. You are not bad company, you know.”

“Am I not?"

“Probably. Sometimes. No, even though you strangle me, you are still good company."

Generous of him. Ulfric would be generous too.

"You are not so unendurable yourself."

"Thank you."

A short silence.

"Why did Elof save you?" Ulfric asked again.

"I don't know. I think he adopted me in place of his dead brother. I don't know why."

“…That would do it," Ulfric said, satisfied at last.

The elf's eyes drooped.

He was sleepy, perhaps. Ulfric felt sorry for him.

"I will leave you to sleep, since I have my answer, and return tomorrow to see what your god has to say about your stones.”

\--O--

The next morning, Ulfric downed Jorleif's hangover remedy, rubbed an aching forehead, and silently cursed Ondolemar of Markarth and all the stones of Tamriel to the hottest, most hideous depths of Oblivion.

"Are you feeling better, Jarl Ulfric?" Jorleif asked solicitously.

"Yes," Ulfric said.

He wasn't. His pride smarted. His conscience smarted more. Talos forgive him, Ulfric prayed, because there was a part of him that wondered whether if the Daedra ever  _did_ try to drag the rotten elf there in front of him, he'd wind up drawing his sword and doing his stubborn best to stop them.


	21. A Matter of Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Matter of Stones

Ondolemar was not pleased.

There was, naturally, no shortage of reasons to not be pleased in his current situation, but the one that was annoying him at the moment was the fact that Auri-El was choosing not to answer his question. Yes, he'd taken advice from a Nord, yes, he'd worked with a Nord to kill an Altmer the day before, and no, he wasn't in the sunlight. Still, Ondolemar thought, there ought to have been _some_ response.

Did Auri-El, or did Auri-El not, approve of the plan, and the method, for unraveling the fabric of Mundus?

He ought to have. Admittedly, Ondolemar had not asked him this before, but Auri-El had known that was the end-goal for more than five centuries and he'd never sent any divine message to discourage the Thalmor. On the other hand, Auri-El hadn't done it himself when Trinimac had killed Lorkhan, which-- in light of the unfortunate truth that Ondolemar wasn't certain he _wanted_ mankind to disappear completely anymore-- begged the question if perhaps, just perhaps, the reason he had not was because he did not, in fact, want it done.

There were more if's either way. Even if Auri-El did mind, once men were removed from the fabric of possibility, he'd presumably, like Ondolemar, stop minding that it had been done. On the other hand, oughtn't obeying the current wishes of one's chief deity be one's priority, rather than defying him and comforting oneself with the thought that he would eventually be made to share one's world view?

But then, what if he did not mind, after all? What if Ondolemar had been corrupted by his days in this cell, and he was defying not just the desire of the Aldmer in general to end their suffering on Mundus, but Auri-El's wish to lose no more of his children to the necromancers and the Daedra that infested this plane? The wish of a father, to have all the children he could return safely to his side? Auri-El was not man's god. There was no real reason to assume he cared more for them than Lorkhan had for the collective mer of Tamriel.

Logic swung like a pendulum, favoring both sides and none.

Ondolemar placed a finger against his temple to soothe a budding headache.

_I am sorry. I do not know why I feel this way, my father. Would that your answer were as simple as that I am wrong, now, in this weakness I feel when I think of the fragile candlelight of their existence being snuffed out by my hand. I want to be wrong. If I am right, than these past centuries-- you saw me. You saw it all. Why did you never stop me, if those deaths did not please you?_

_I want-- I do not know what I want. To feel less blind, perhaps. Help me see, my father. It sickens me, that I might have been wrong. It sickens me more, to persist in that wrongness, clinging blindly to my delusions just to shield myself against the shame I would feel for how badly I, and all my kin, have failed you, if we misunderstood you so completely. Help me. Tell me. Please. Do not turn from me, my father. Punish me, but do not abandon me. Please._

_I need your answer._

Too desperate, that. Too childish.

Ondolemar apologised to Auri-El for that unseemly display, and tried to work out how to phrase it more neutrally.

_If you do not think men should be obliterated, please send me some sign. I feel that, owing them my life and my untarnished soul, it would be somewhat churlish to do so. I will obey, however, if that is your will. I am your child, first and foremost. Your will stands before my own. I will wait for your answer._

Yes. That was better, Ondolemar thought.

Still no answer. A pity.

Ondolemar sat, resigning himself to waiting, and mourned the passing of the last vestiges of his warming spell.

\--O--

Ulfric drilled the men in the morning, ate, listened to his petitioners, ate once more, and drilled the men again until the evening. The men muttered that they almost wished the Season Unending hadn't ended, but they'd thank him for this when the truce ended. He'd lost more men than he should have to a handful of high elf thieves. It was clear enough that the Windhelm guard had been shirking their duties. They were Nords, so they had the raw potential needed to be a force to be feared. They just needed to spend more time training, and less time patrolling and neglecting their duties in Candlehearth Hall.

“Reminds me of the old days, back in the Legion,” Galmar said later. “Poor devils. I doubt half of them have ever worked so hard in their life.”

“I doubt they are cursing us with even half the bitterness that we directed at our officers back then,” Ulfric said, comfortably.

Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced exchanged a look with Galmar.

His men were, were they? Well, Nords were Nords, and soldiers were soldiers. Ulfric would take it philosophically.

After dinner, he visited the Thalmor. The elf was sitting near the door; his usual spot. His usual position, too, languidly elegant, though he shivered more than Ulfric remembered him doing. Deerskin was warmer than prison rags though, so perhaps that accounted for it. That was his fault, for trying to run. It wasn't as if Ulfric could afford to waste fresh skins on his prisoners, or let them keep wearing mages robes that were clearly enchanted.

"Why are you here?" the elf said, breaking the silence.

"To assure myself that you have not yet crawled free of my cells."

“... You seem more sober than you were yesterday, Jarl Ulfric,” the elf observed, eyes hooded. "A pity."

"It is, is it? Were you hoping I would waste more Black-Briar Mead on you?"

"I was not. Difficult though it may be for a Nord to believe, I have loftier ambitions in life than devolving into an alcoholic."

"And what, exactly, might those ambitions be?"

"At the moment? Sitting in front of a proper fire."

"Lofty heights indeed."

Amusement flickered in the elf's eyes.

He was enjoying this, was he?

"You seem colder than yesterday," Ulfric observed, unkindly.

"My warming spell expired. A pity, but I daresay I will survive."

"Certainly it will not be the cold that carries you off," Ulfric said, with deliberate intent.

"You wound me. But can you truly bring yourself to execute one who is, in your own words, 'not so unendurable'?”

Ulfric's hands clenched.

The elf remembered that, did he?

"I have killed many I have liked better than you. I assure you, not being unendurable will not stay my hand."

"I am not sure I believe you. Your standards are slipping. Galmar is absent. You carry no sword. You notice when I shiver. Clearly, you are prone to overempathising with your enemies. It is a dangerous habit."

It was not. Galmar was in the barracks upstairs, hovering, great-axe likely already drawn, and Ulfric had no need of weapons when facing an unarmed elf. His Voice alone would tear him apart. And Ulfric was not overempathising. He was not empathising with this elf at all.

"Whether you believe me or not does not matter. I will execute you when I want to execute you, and not one day sooner. If you had such consideration for my sensibilities, you should have killed yourself yesterday, before I found you."

Ulfric expected a dark look from his prisoner for that.

Instead… something flickered in the elf's eyes, unhappy and distant, and then the elf looked to the opposite wall, shrugging.

"Perhaps."

“Are you drunk still?” Ulfric frowned.

“I am not. Your wretched mead is incapable of rendering an Altmer drunk even for two hours, much less twenty." 

Ulfric's frown deepened. The elf glanced at him again, lips thinning.

"Do not fret, Jarl Ulfric. I have no such consideration for your sensibilities. I merely wonder what might have happened-- differently, had I done just that. Since I chose not to, however, killing myself now will hardly fix the situation."

Ulfric curbed the instinctive desire to scan the elf's cell for anything sharp, or anything that could be used as rope.

The elf had not killed himself. He would not. A distraction was needed for both of them.

"What did your god have to say about your stones?" Ulfric said, at last.

"Nothing. He is busy, doubtless, with more pressing concerns."

Ulfric made an interrogative noise.

"I am not a priest. I do not have his ear. I extrapolate only that if my cousin, who has but two children, cannot manage them, then Auri-El, who has all of the mer save the Dunmer and the Orsimer to contend with, has difficulty managing all of us too."

"Why does he not contend with them?"

"Because most of them turned from him in favor of worshiping the Daedra. Poor judgement on their part."

"I have met dark elves who do not serve the Daedra," Ulfric objected.

"They switched shortly after they arrived on the mainland to the worship of the Tribunal, and thence to Azura and the Divines. Eight of the Divines, anyway," the high elf shrugged. "It was still poor judgement on their part. Besides, your pool is a biased one, since the Dunmer who genuinely serve the Daedra are unlikely to visit you. They are, more likely, at the shrines you Nords have foolishly allowed to be erected in your lands, in the name of free worship. Of course, since you have also allowed a museum to be constructed in Dawnstar _revering_ the Mythic Dawn, such stupidity should not surprise me."

"Free worship is the right of every man. I will not restrict it."

"Noble of you. Why bother learning from Oblivion Crisis, after all? _Clearly,_ there is nothing wrong with freely worshiping Lord Dagon."

An unfair barb, that.

"I always understood, from the tales, that the author of that threat was a high elf. Like you."

"Your tales misled you. The half-breed bastard of an Altmer and a Bosmer can hardly be described as being 'like me'," the elf sniffed.

Ulfric neither knew, nor cared to know, about what this elf thought of bloodlines and the legitimacy of children born out of wedlock.

The elf seemed disinclined to expand on it either. They sat in unfriendly silence.

"Where are the other eleven vampire lairs?" Ulfric asked, eventually, bluntly turning the subject.

"Why would I tell you? Even if you killed every vampire in Tamriel, you refuse to stop the worship of Molag Bal," the elf said, turning it back, "Those who serve him will find ways be transformed into vampires. Those vampires will infect new victims and infest new caves. Likely, they already are doing so. Why waste my time? You are doomed to forever work as a physician who will only address the symptoms of a disease, and refuses to give the victim the potion needed to remove the cause of it."

This, Ulfric thought, was nothing more or less than petty vindictiveness.

"I do not punish men for crimes that _will_ be committed, or that I suspect _might_  be. I punish for crimes that I know  _have_ been."

"Such ingenuousness, from one who killed a vampire on sight who came to Skyrim solely to find a cure for her ailment so that she could return safely to her toddling son."

"She was a vampire, and she had nearly killed you."

"This, from the man who would have rewarded Linwe for bringing him my head."

Ulfric breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Three times.

"You do realise, Justiciar, that your only source for that sad tale is her."

"I am not a brilliant judge of character, but I am trained in interrogation. Her fondness for her son was real."

"It was not enough, however, to keep her from infecting you, and Talos knows who--," Ulfric cut himself off, abruptly.

The high elf's face was smug. Damn him. Damn the wretched elf to--

"I will make you a deal, Jarl Ulfric."

"I am not interested in making deals with a Thalmor," Ulfric gritted out, through clenched teeth.

"We may set aside my allegiance, since my government does not involve itself in the internal politics of Skyrim."

Ulfric glared at him, unimpressed.

"For each earnest, faithful worshiper of Molag Bal you find and bring to me who has committed no crime worthy of death, I will tell you where a vampire lair can be found."

"I know what point it is that you seek to make, Justiciar. But still I will not force men to stop worshiping their chosen gods. Were I to try, my cause would become void, and I myself would have no more right to drive the Thalmor and the Empire from Skyrim than the Empire and the Thalmor have to stay here and constrain us."

"Your cause to crown yourself high king, you mean? Or do you mean your cause to restore the lands of Skyrim to the hands of her original owners, freeing her from usurpers too weak to hold her? Because if it is the latter, you should consider negotiating with the Forsworn in the Reach. They worship the Daedra and revere Hagravens, yes-- but those are mere trivialities, when we consider that they were here before the Nords, and occupy a lot more of the Reach now than _you_ do. For that matter," the elf tapped a stone, "Why not negotiate with the Falmer who nest beneath us in the tunnels beneath the mountains? They do not speak the common tongue, but why let that--"

Ulfric slammed his fist against the bars an inch from the elf's face.

"Do not mock me, elf."

"Was that what I was doing, Jarl Ulfric?"

"My cause is the right to worship Talos, and freedom from an Empire that denied us this right."

"Is it? Truly?"

"It is."

"Mm. And should the Jarls choose to crown a different High King, Jarl Ulfric-- the Dragonborn, for example, or Jarl Elisif-- once that right is secured, you would, of course, accept this happily?"

"The Dragonborn has no interest in ruling Skyrim."

 _And Elisif had no interest in defending Talos, or untangling Skyrim from the Empire at all,_ Ulfric thought, and did not say. Little as Ulfric thought of the Jarl of Solitude, she was, nevertheless, a Jarl of Skyrim. He would not bandy words about her behind her back with a Thalmor.

The Thalmor 'mm'd again, and dropped the matter.

Ulfric wasn't sure if that made him more annoyed or less.

"You speak of the Falmer as if they still exist," he said, after a short pause.

It should have been, 'They do not exist.' The superstitious might hold them responsible for sudden frosts or broken boot-nails, but sensible men knew they'd been exterminated by Ysgramor long ago. There was something unnerving, though, in the way this elf spoke of them as easily, as naturally, as the legion veterans spoke of werewolves and the goblins of Cyrodiil.

"They do. They have fallen far, since the days of old. A warning to us all of what happens to mer who spend eons hidden from Auri-El's grace."

An unhelpful answer.

"What happened to them?" Ulfric prodded.

A pause. Possibly, the Thalmor was deciding if this was restricted information or not.

If he said he wanted more guiltless Daedra worshipers brought to him before he answered, Ulfric might hit him.

"Their souls are white," the Thalmor said, at last, as if this explained it all.

It was, Ulfric thought, as clear as mud.

"Ah. Yes. The Nordic ignorance of all things arcane... How to put it? They are blind, bend, emaciated, pallid, and very, very cruel. Cruel, in fact, to the point of madness.The horrors visited upon them by your ancestors and by the Dwemer, to whom they enslaved themselves in exchange for their lives, they now return tenfold to all who cross their paths. They infest most Dwemer ruins. I say 'most' because curiously, despite the excavations one would have expected to disturb them, no sightings were reported in Markarth. As of yet, anyway. If you receive word that the entirety of Understone Keep has been slaughtered by them one of these days, I will not be surprised."

There had been reports, sometimes, of travelers going missing in such areas. Survivors spoke of nightmarish arrows, tipped with poison, and of pale-skinned, eyeless demons who dragged their loved ones off in the night. Delusions born of hypothermia, some men said. Ulfric wondered if he might have a name, now, for those demons.

"You would be grateful, then, that you are no longer stationed there," was all he said, aloud.

"Your torments are certainly more bearable. I doubt  _you_ will dismember me, piece by piece, and feed me to a chaurus."

"Is that what they do?" Ulfric frowned.

"To some of their prisoners, yes. I would not call myself an expert on their culture-- not that what they have deserves that title. I ran across some once, and they disturbed me enough to induce me to make some pertinent inquiries at the Embassy. The files we have on them are sketchy at best."

If he'd watched men be cut up and fed to chaurus, Ulfric believed it would disturb him.

"Where did you run across them?"

Another pause.

"This is a somewhat one-sided exchange. Get me a blanket, and I will consider telling you."

"If I get you a blanket, I want the whole tale, not just the location."

"It is not a happy tale."

"I would hear it, nevertheless."

"... Very well. We have a deal."

Ulfric called for Cahlad. A blanket was fetched.

The elf wrapped himself inside it snugly.

"It was a dark and stormy night," Ondolemar began, with the air of someone who'd told tales around campfires more than once before. "It was four years ago, now. I was investigating suspected Talos worship in one of the caves just south of Liar's Retreat. I had left my guards outside. They were loyal creatures, but unsuited for stealth. I intended only to scout, but before I had gone more than two rooms beyond the main entrance, I heard a soft sound in the distance. Sobbing. Someone wept, in these tunnels, and there was a strange smell, too; akin to blood, gore, and dried excrement mixed together with the scent millipedes release when stepped on. I cast a muffle spell. I was cautious. I had a strange feeling that something with an intent far darker than my own moved in these caves. There were bodies, in the next room. A woman with a sword through her chest. A child, decapitated. Finally, in an old store room, I found the source of the sobbing. A man with arrows in his back and his leg, already black with poison. I knelt next to him. Such was his need that he cared not for my race or my robes which marked me clearly as a Thalmor.

 _"Help her,"_ he said to me, clutching my robe,  _"Please. I'm done for, but the eyeless ones have my sister. Please. You must save her."_

"I find it difficult to imagine a bandit saying anything of the sort," Ulfric said, dubiously.

"Do not interrupt. You spoil my tale."

Ulfric frowned and reluctantly subsided.

"I asked him what had happened. He said there had been strange noises, distant tapping, that had started the week before in the lower passages. It appeared irregularly and late at night; those who reported it were mostly drunk, he said, and so they themselves wondered if they'd imagined it. None took it seriously. Then, mere hours before, the tunnel wall had fallen, and the Falmer had fallen on them. Drunk, unprepared, and for the most part unwary, they fell. He himself, he said, had tried to run. They had shot him down and left him, to die or to return to later he knew not. He was too weak to stand, and too weak, he said, even to scream when his sister was dragged past, one of a handful of survivors."

A slight pause. The elf was milking the effect, Ulfric thought. He wasn't sure it wasn't working.

A dull horror was growing in him, difficult to quash.

"I made no promises to him. I freed myself, and stood. Duty demanded that I investigate the matter more closely, and I resolved to do so. I knew little of them, at that point. He'd called them eyeless, though, and so I made sure I cast muffling spells upon myself to mask my movements, and advanced, still keeping to the shadows. There were more dead, in the lower tunnels, but no dead Falmer. The bandit's claims of having been surprised seemed true. At last I reached the part of the tunnel where the wall. It was lightless, that hole, unlit by torch or by magic, and from it came the scent of purest despair."

The feeling of horror grew.

"Almost, I did not go in. Fear held me still. I do not like the darkness. I never have. I wondered, if I went in there, if I would live to see the sun again. Then I heard the scream-- a drawn out wail, as that of a fox caught in a bear trap. I moved forward. Auri-El was with me. Around the first bend, there was a glowing mushroom. These mushrooms grew in patches all along that tunnel. They saved my life. Had it not been for the dull light shed by them, I must have stumbled into their patrols a dozen times over. At last, I reached a wider cavern. There were more mushrooms there. The light was stronger. It was a camp, of sorts. A halt in the Falmer's march. Inside a crude cage, the bandits were chained in a huddle. All but one. She, they had on a higher ledge, above the pens of their chaurus. The Falmer are a cruel race. The woman was all but naked. Her right arm was already gone. I do not think I need to describe in detail, how slowly they killed her. Suffice it to say that it was not pleasant. They themselves ate what they did not throw to their war beasts. It reminded me, almost, of the cruelty of the daedra during the Oblivion Crisis. I remember hoping I would not be ill, and that the bandits would not spot me and scream at me to help them."

Ulfric did not, he told himself, feel sick.

"An hour passed. Perhaps two. Then, a commotion. One man had gotten hold of a knife, from somewhere. Perhaps Talos blessed him with it. The false-god's amulet was certainly hanging from his neck. Alas that he was not also blessed with common sense. He charged the Falmer leader. Perhaps he hoped to take him by surprise. A foolish decision. They are blind, the Falmer, but their hearing is very, very keen. He was impaled in one thrust, and his body was tossed to the chaurus and worried apart. Once they had-- finished, the Falmer slept. I did not sleep. I would die if I slept, I knew, and I could not leave because I needed the bandit's amulet for my report. They left for their deeper tunnels the next day, and when they did, I collected the amulet from... what was left, and departed for the surface... where I drank, perhaps, three flasks of Alinorian wine, and reported to the Embassy that the bandits of that cave were unlikely to be worshiping Talos-- or indeed doing anything much at all-- ever again."

That was the _end?_ That was the--

"You did not _help them?"_ Ulfric demanded roughly.

"No. Why would I? They served Talos. They were going to be carted off to Northwatch anyway."

But there was a difference between sending men to be tortured, and watching them be fed alive to beasts, Ulfric thought.

"That excuse is weak at best," he said, aloud.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Personally, I prefer to think of it as using common sense. Unlike Nords I possess some, you see. Maces are not made for stealth, I was not wearing armor, and I did not have a bow. Intellectually, the only thing trying to rescue them would have achieved was my death. Even _with_ my guards, I would not have been a match for them. Logically, then, heroics were less important than finding out the nature of the threat, and ensuring that my government was aware of it."

Flawlessly cold, that logic.

"And did that common sense help you to sleep at night?"

"No. The wine did that."

Infuriating, that flippancy.

"I am sorely tempted to take that blanket back."

"Take it if you wish. I care not. I merely wanted to see if you would make deals with the Thalmor after all."

Ulfric's temper flared violently.

"You tread a very thin line, Ondolemar."

"Perhaps. They are dangerous though, the Falmer. You should not dismiss the threat they pose. They are like an ice berg in the Sea of Ghosts. The danger you see on the surface is but one tenth of what waits, hidden beneath, to claim you. Were I not prohibited from interfering with Skyrim's internal politics by the White-Gold Concordat, I would advise you to start culling their numbers. The Khajiits would be ideal hunters, with their natural stealth and night vision. A bounty on their ears would be a simple enough measure, and would encourage many to begin hunting them as a sport. Since their ears are also usable alchemy reagents, Nurelion-- it is he, is it not, who owns the alchemist laboratory here?-- would probably be delighted to take them off your hands."

"How unfortunate for you, then, that since the White-Gold Concordat does bind you, you are unable to do so."

"It is a fact I mourn every day."

"It is, is it?"

"Yes. I enjoy meddling in politics."

"Was that why you were assigned to Skyrim?"

"No. I was assigned here because I am a competent mer with a flawless lineage and an excellent education."

"Those traits are rare enough in your government to justify such deployment?"

"No. Our government is _filled_ with such talented individuals, naturally. But I had performed my duties admirably, it had been a century or so since my last promotion, and my predecessor was killed by a Briarheart. Someone needed to get the job."

"I thought you said the Forsworn did not attack your kind."

"They do not, normally. He was an excellent Justiciar, poor Rynion, but a mer with lamentably poor judgement, when it came to political intrigue. He made the mistake of attempting to arrest one of the Silver-Bloods. I have observed that most who annoy that clan tend to be raided by the Forsworn."

Concerning, if it was true. Ulfric would need to inquire more deeply into that.

"But you, who enjoy them, are a shrewder judge of politics, I take it?"

"I am alive, am I not? After close to twenty five days in the cells of Ulfric Stormcloak, could many other Thalmor operatives claim the same?"

"That has nothing to do with politics."

"True. My information. So you claim, anyway. Somehow, I begin to suspect it is more than that, since it has been weeks since you last beat me into unconsciousness, or threatened to torture me creatively in any way at all. You will have difficulty rooting out our agents if you treat them all with as much restraint as you are showing me."

This from an elf huddled in a blanket, whose only visible body part was his bald head.

"Take comfort in the knowledge that you are a special case. I have a knack for finding your agents. When I do, I kill them. There is a reason the Thalmor are not found within the bounds of Eastmarch."

The elf 'mm'd again, sounding insultingly skeptical.

"Tell me," the elf said, eventually, "Have you considered that in the time you spend down here conversing with me, you could, more usefully, be writing to the Vigilantes of Stendarr for the locations of known vampire lairs in Skyrim?"

Ulfric stiffened.

"It is, of course, only a _suggestion."_

"They would give that information freely?"

_You would give that information freely?_

"They are sensitive, of course. Emphasise that you are asking  _only_ so that you can avoid such places, emphasise your respect for Stendarr, and emphasise that you would prefer not to waste their time bringing lairs to their attention that they are already aware of. In short, treat them like a temperamental Jarl who considers daedric servants and vampires their hold, and make it plain you do not threaten their territory. They will tell you... of the ones they know, at least. Who knows? They might know as much or more than I."

The elf wasn't quite willing to make himself redundant in this regard, then. Still... embarrassing though it was to admit that he'd not thought of so simple a measure, the truth was, unfortunately, that Ulfric hadn't. He had plenty of excuses. The rarity of vampires. The war. The fact that the Vigilantes, like the dark elves, refused to support either him or the Empire. The fact that he did not like asking favors. The fact that he didn't like paperwork in general.

"If you know how to phrase such letters so well, why don't you write it for me?"

"I dislike paperwork."

"Overcome your dislike."

"And what would, precisely, would I gain from overcoming my dislike?"

"The knowledge that the sons and daughters of Skyrim were the safer for your efforts."

One eyebrow arched skeptically.

"And that would comfort an officer of the Dominion, would it?"

"It would comfort you, Ondolemar, I think."

A thin frown, then, and a pinched look about the eyes.

"I am still waiting for Auri-El to tell me if the stones matter or not. Until I have his answer, that it would comfort me if they were not prised loose is not something I will allow to sway me."

It would be better, Ulfric thought, grimly, if the elf would just speak in the common tongue instead of retreating into his confusing metaphors. Still, there was... some meaning in there. If the stones being prised loose was the safety of Skyrim's children, then were Nords those stones? A cold thought, given the elf's ramblings last night. If Nords were those stones, then--

_“And if I had blown them up, and I could not remember them, would that matter, to the stones or to me?”_

Ulfric watched the elf, and wondered just what freedom it was the Thalmor hoped to gain by destroying Nords completely.

"If he wants those stones pried loose, will you do it?" Ulfric said, evenly.

A slight pause.

"I would try. If I could not, I would submit myself to the Embassy for treason."

"And if he does not?"

"Then I would consider whether I would prefer to destroy the stones anyway, since once they were gone my wrong decision would turn into a right one, or whether I would prefer instead to labor forever against the endless waves of guilt and futility born of regretting and trying to correct an action-- centuries of actions-- that could never be undone."

Chilling, hearing his own words reflected back at him, knowing which way he'd advised this elf to go.

"I was drunk, last night."

"You were. You were also honest. Be honest once more, Jarl Ulfric: Were Shor or Talos to visit _you_ in a dream, telling you to stop the war and-- worse-- to switch sides, so that you were killing Stormcloaks instead of leading them, would _you_ listen? I do not think so. You would tell yourself your vision was a lie, born of exhaustion and guilt, and press on so that every life you had ended thus far was not in vain. It is a sound road to follow. Choosing it would allow me to sleep far better at night. The only question I would face is whether the price I would need to pay for such sleep was worthwhile."

What was there to say to that? All of it held the ring of truth.

How many times had he had such nightmares and in the morning brushed them aside?

The elf smiled then, strange and lopsided, eyes distant.

"Do not fret too much over this. Auri-El has not answered yet. Even when he does, I am, in the end, just one Altmer rotting in your dungeons waiting to be executed. One mer is unlikely to alter the course charted by the Thalmor, or change the fate of the stones. If I fall on my side, you will execute me. If I fall on your side, you will probably execute me anyway, and if you do not, the First Emissary will. Our cause will not bear fruit in your lifetime, or mine. It may not, even, for millennia."

When had things gotten so bad, Ulfric wondered? When had they reached the point where this high elf could address him so-- so  _conversationally_? As if he were speaking with, not a friend, but someone safe to speak with, who would listen, perhaps even care, about what he felt or said?

 _When you started telling him stories of your childhood, and fought by his side_ , was the obvious answer.

_When you started making deals with him for blankets, instead of breaking his wrists._

_When you forgot to think of him as a monster._

"... I would not execute you," Ulfric said, at last.

A startled glance, followed by a disapproving frown.

"I would not," Ulfric said, again. " _If_ you were on my side."

"You place rather more trust in my words than I have earned, I think. A Nordic trait. You should curb that tendency."

"Worried for me, are you?"

"Naturally. The Thalmor--,"

"I refer you you, not your government, who wish to blow me up."

Another frown.

"I may wish to blow you up, depending on Auri-El's reply."

"No. You may bow to your god's will, but I do not think that one who looked at the body of a child who died for you yesterday as you did truly _wishes_ for every Nord in Tamriel to be slaughtered."

"... I begin to see where Elof got his romanticism from."

"Reassure yourself with the knowledge that it is practicality, not romanticism, that guides my hand. If you are on my side, you are more useful alive than dead. And if Elenwen seeks your death I will not do her work for her."

"You do not seem over-fond of our esteemed First Emissary," the elf observed.

"Elenwen the Harpy is a more apt name for her."

If the elf pushed with this--

He did not, though, and instead, the silence stretched.

"... Very well," the elf said at last, "Your justification has moved me... slightly. Fetch me paper, a quill, and something clean and flat to write on. I will, _reluctantly,_ overcome my repugnance regarding all matters related to paperwork, and compose something that you, or your steward, may attach your name to, to send to the Vigilantes of Stendarr. It will be a masterpiece in eloquence. Learn from it well, when it is done. You have, perhaps, twenty minutes, before I will stop being moved. I will not be repeating the favor if they expect a reply."


	22. Interlude: Divine Matters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> WARNINGS: Very casual (and probably OOC) handling of the Aedra of the Altmeri Pantheon.

## Interlude: Divine Matters

In Aetherius, as in Oblivion, each god had their own pocket of existence, and while Aedra in general got along better than their more chaotic cousins-- when one disqualified poor Lorkhan, anyway-- they nevertheless were not in the habit of meeting very often. They were _certainly_ not in the habit of dropping in on each other uninvited, without the excuse of war or something equally horrible to justify it.

For this reason, Stendarr, sipping tea with Mara in a sunlit garden that smelt faintly of comberry and peaches, was somewhat startled by the unexpected arrival of Auri-El. Auri-El did not seem to be in a good mood, poor chap. It was the corporeal form, likely. Auri-El was a god who liked to drift about in spiritual photons. Physical existence in general bothered him. Stendarr felt for him. Stendarr felt for most people, though. That was the trouble with being blessed with a great deal of empathy, and the ability to see into the true hearts of beings.

“Would you like some tea, brother?” Stendarr offered, kindly.

“I would not,” Auri-El said. “I will be brief, little brother. Stop poaching my servants.”

Stendarr blinked at him.

“My servant, who has served me faithfully for five centuries in my goal of finally, _finally_ getting rid of that wretched plane, now feels _pity_ for _men_ because one of _yours_ happened to die. If that isn't a sure sign that you are trying to steal him from me, I do not know what is.”

That, of course, was the other problem that was probably irritating his older brother. When what one wanted was so swayed by what one's faithful followers _believed_ one wanted, one could get quite confused when minor factions of extremists happened to be _very faithful_ indeed and thought one wanted to become a second Mehrunes Dagon. Which perhaps explained why Auri-El, who had once said he was a patient God, well-disposed to all sentient beings, was having difficulty remembering a time he'd not wanted men destroyed. Stendarr had noticed it himself, actually. After the Oblivion crisis, he'd discovered that hating the daedric forces and vampires was just common-sense, really. Now, if it had been _them_ his older brother were trying to obliterate-- alas, that it was not.

Being a deity, of course, Stendarr was perfectly capable of thinking all this, and talking at the same time.

“I recall, my brother,” he said, taking another sip of herbal tea, “that you asked me to see that that particular Altmer was not killed. If he is wondering if genocide is wrong, that is just some late-blooming common-sense. I have no designs on him.”

“He's right, dear,” Mara said.

“Don't you 'dear' me, Lady Mara,” Auri-El said.

“Alright, I won't. But it is I, not our little brother, who has designs on that particular servant. What he feels is not pity for their fate but the attachment a father, brother, and friend feels towards beings he is slowly realising have as much right to life as himself.”

Auri-El's sun-gold eyes flashed.

“I asked Akatosh if I could first. It's not my fault you two haven't been talking since the Imperials took the Numidium into Alinor.”

“Just because we _happened_ to be the same god before we were split by men's beliefs does not make us the same god now. It is my servant you are poaching, not his. Desist, Lady Mara.”

“You say that every time I try to sew the smallest seeds of love into your stone-hearted Thalmor.”

“I do. And so I will say again: Desist, Lady Mara. Desist, or I will begin poaching yours.”

“How many do I have left for you to claim? Where is love, in Alinor? In Valenwood? I do not just mean romance, by the way, though you are lacking in that too. But where is filial obedience? The love of peace, family and warmth? Where is the love between friends that exists not because they killed with each other, but because they enjoy each other's company? Because they happen to have the same sense of humor, or enjoy the same hobbies? Those of mine who clung to them, refusing war, your faithful unjustly slew. Do you know how much time I spent with those traumatised souls to give them some measure of peace?”

Auri-El had the grace to look slightly guilty.

"A long time. But their pain will end when Mundus does.”

Stendarr felt impelled to make a disapproving noise.

“Come now, my brother.”

“Don't 'come now' me, little brother. You did that when Lorkhan died. Look at the consequences. Trinimac would never have been lost like he was if we'd just destroyed Mundus while we were down there. There should _never_ have been a spot where Aetherius and Oblivion overlapped.”

“Technically, he's not lost. We know where he is.”

Auri-El's glare was scorching. Literally. Being a divine being, however, Stendarr merely gave his corporeal form a new head when his present one began to melt.

“That isn't nice, dear,” Mara said.

Auri-El subsided, scowling.

“You will stop trying to claim him, Lady Mara.”

“You know, Talos is visiting the Me currently combing Kyne's hair-- she really does have beautiful hair; if I had a handmaiden and a lot of free time on my hands, I would have hair like that too-- and saying the same thing about one of his Nords. You two really are very alike.”

“I am nothing like that false _pretender_.”

“Pretender? And yet I seem to recall a certain someone actually _agreeing_ to give him Lorkhan's mantle, to stabilise Mundus once the Towers began to crumble one by one.”

“I also agreed to create Mundus in the first place. I never claimed I was infallible.”

Stendarr sighed, deeply. Mara had limits to her patience. Auri-El had already passed his. They were debating now, not as politely as two Aedra in the same pantheon _should_ have been, back and forth. It was a pity.

Hopefully, the Altmer would deal with the Thalmor soon, so Auri-El would be saner again. But then, the Thalmor were pitiable too, weren't they? Traumatised by the Numidium, and then traumatised all over again by the Oblivion Crisis and the shattering of the Crystal-Like Law, it was small wonder they loathed mankind and the plane created to house men. Stendarr felt compassion for them, too. They weren't wrong that making men hadn't really been fair on them. It was just that now men _did_ exist, genocide just wasn't a healthy way to _deal_ with that trauma.

“I propose a deal,” he said, taking another sip of tea.

“What deal, dear?” Mara said.

“You two toss a coin for him. Heads, and my brother's answer is to spare men. Tails, and the answer is that men need to be torn from the fabric of reality.”

“That is chaotic,” Auri-El objected. “If I did not win, I would also be lying.”

“I would be happy to send the dream for you,” Mara said.

“Easy for you to say. He is my servant. His faith is not weak. If he starts to _genuinely_ think I do not want men dead, I will get a _very, very_ bad headache.”

“You deserve one,” Stendarr said, and then, because justice must be tempered by mercy, “Though I've heard that tea is good for headaches, if you want some.”

“I do not.”

“I am not trying to steal your servants,” Mara said, gently, “Nor do I dismiss their plight. I weep for the suffering of all our meri children. But the races of men are my children too. It grieves me, the thought of them disappearing completely. Their souls shine so briefly as it is.”

Imperceptibly, Auri-El thawed.

“… I want a neutral party to toss the coin. Anu decides, not you or I.”

“Who do you consider neutral?” Stendarr asked.

“Magnus.”

“Magnus wanted Mundus destroyed as much as you did,” Stendarr objected.

“Xen, then.”

“Very well,” Mara said, “Let us pay him a visit together.”

A moment later, she and Auri-El vanished.

Peace returned to Stendarr's gardens. Stendarr put another pot of tea on the stove to boil, and took the time to send a bolt of divine lightning to strike down a vampire who'd cornered one of his Vigilantes in a back-alley in Cyrodiil.


	23. A Nightmarish Reply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Nightmarish Reply

_He stands atop a snowy ledge._

_Far beneath him, four mer huddle together behind a boulder, trying to silence the cries of a small child. He thinks, why do they hide? And then-- the arrow takes the first mer in his shoulder. He screams, and the others turn to run. Too slow. All of them are too slow, and all of them fall. It is men who hunt them. Men who smile as they collect their heads as trophies. The helplessness of his kin is as irritating as it is sickening._

_He tries to move. Tries, and fails._

“ _Watch,” a voice says, ancient and strong, “What men did to my children, long ago.”_

_The scene changes._

_Men sail ships into Skyrim, eager-eyed and laughing. Above them fly dragons. They dock. They smile. They go to the pens, where mer are herded together, broken and fearful, and drag them forth. Their hearts are cut out in ceremonies presided over by men in skull-like masks who reek of evil. They offer them to a black dragon who watches them, swelling with power. All hail Alduin, god-King of men, comes the chant._

_The survivors curse them, sobbing._

“ _Watch,” the voice says, “the horror of man's faith in man's false-gods.”_

_The scene changes._

_He stands atop the Crystal-Like-Law. The daedra advance. They fall in thousands, but there are millions. The refugees cling to each other, sick with terror. Suddenly, there is a cry. A group of men knock desperately on the door, terrified, pleading for mercy. Daedra are close behind them. A mer, a refugee, motherly and gentle, stumbles towards it from the inside before she can be stopped, and opens it. The men do not enter. They try, but they are too slow. They and she are both too slow, and when the Ogrim Titan wedges the door open, it cannot be closed._

_This time, when the Crystal Tower shatters, every refugee in it is already dead._

“ _Watch,” the voice says, “The futility of showing mercy to men.”_

_He falls to his knees, weeping._

_The scene changes._

_He is not watching, this time. He holds a curved blade, and he cuts down Elenwen in her sleep. He cuts down Kaiya, who has guarded his steps for six years. He cuts down Lorcalin, who works too hard and dreams of becoming a priest. He cuts down Valmir, who smuggled him Colovian Brandy to console him when he'd lost the bet with Rulindil that he could get out of his paperwork by lying to Elenwen that he'd been mauled by a troll. He cuts down every friend he has, and he cuts down Thalmor he has never met at all._

“ _Watch,” the voice says, “What men would have you do.”_

_He is alone. The floor runs red with the blood of the dead._

_He drops his sword, and collapses, vomiting._

_The scene changes._

_He is chained to a throne by his collar._

_Ulfric Stormcloak wears a crown, and sits at the head of a high table. He is hungry. Ulfric Stormcloak eats and tosses him scraps with scorn in his eyes. He falls upon them, heedless of pride, devouring them all. A mirror stands beside him, and in it he sees not himself, but a gaunt, twisted thing, filthy and cruel, akin to a Falmer. There is no sanity in his eyes._

“ _Watch,” the voice says, “What men would have you become.”_

_The scene changes._

“ _Stop,” he rasps, eyes shut, hands pressed against his ears to close them, “Stop. If this is your answer, my father, then I have heard it. I do not want to see more. You will is clear. I see my weakness fully. I see my blindness and my shortsightedness, and I see how badly I have erred in-- everything, this past month. I am grateful for the clarity your answer brings me, but I do not-- I cannot bear to see more. Please, my father, have mercy, and do not show me more.”_

\--O--

Cahlad was not a well-disposed Nord towards elves in general. He was certainly not well-disposed towards Thalmor.

Still, Jarl Ulfric seemed to tolerate this one, which meant Cahlad should be tolerating him too, especially if he wasn't going to have his head chopped off after all if he switched to their side. Thus, when he happened to notice, while delivering tea, that the elf was muttering feverishly and was clearly in the grip of some nightmare, instead of just wondering if the bastard was feeling bad after all for getting three men killed for absolutely nothing, Cahlad decided to be nice, and gave him a poke through the bars.

Nothing.

Cahlad poked him again, more forcefully. This time, it worked, and the elf startled awake, rearing backwards like he'd been poked with a dagger instead of a finger, eyes staring and clearly not quite all there.

“Your dinner's here,” Cahlad said.

Silence. The elf's blood was pumping hammer-fast in his neck.

"Bad dream?" Cahlad said.

There was a slight pause. Then:

"No," the elf said, roughly.

Prickly bastard. Cahlad grunted and left him, and wondered if he should mention to Commander Stone-Fist or not that the prisoner seemed just a tad insane.

In the end, he decided against it. The elf was a Thalmor, so insanity went with the turf anyway.

"What're you thinking?" Derk said in the mess hall, later, noticing his silence.

"I'm thinking, Talos willing, that if he does join us, I'd like it if he goes in a squad that I'm not in."

"Who's he?" Derk said, oblivious.

"No one," Cahlad said, and served himself another plateful of stew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Useless Trivia: Yep, a coin was, quite literally, tossed to decide what dream Ondolemar would get ;-; Mara was not happy. (Auri-El may or may not have gloated.)


	24. A Friendly Unfriendliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Friendly Unfriendliness

Something was wrong with the elf.

This was Ulfric Stormcloak's immediate thought, when he returned two days after his ill-judged offer of sanctuary to visit his prisoner. Ondolemar was standing regally, arms folded neatly behind his back. The blanket was folded neatly in the corner, abandoned. Unexpected, that. Had the elf finally grown used to the cold? Somehow, Ulfric doubted it.

“If you are hiding your arms because you have removed your bindings and are planning another ill-advised escape attempt, be aware that the ones I will replace them with will be Galmar's sort, not Wuunferth's,” Ulfric said, seating himself.

The elf hesitated, then mirrored him.

“I am not hiding my hands, Jarl Ulfric. I was _attempting_ , before you ruined the effect, to break to you in a dignified, suitably _distant_ fashion the news that Auri-El has seen fit to answer my question,” the elf said, coolly.

Ulfric sent him a searching look.

The elf met it evenly. His gaze was… resigned and, Ulfric thought, a tiny bit regretful.

“It was not in my favor, I take it?” Ulfric said, slowly.

“It was not,” the elf agreed, “That was… very clearly emphasised. Still, even so, I thought it basic courtesy to inform you that I will not be taking advantage of your rashly uttered and very unwise promise to spare my head if I joined your side. Additionally, since I will now be attempting in earnest to… well, you know, I think, more than you _should_ know already about what my government and I are attempting, I suggest you stop treating me like a friend and begin treating me like the threat I am. Or if you will not stop…,” a vague gesture at Ulfric and the cell, “all of this, at least be _aware_ that you are wasting your mercy on someone who intends to try his hardest to end your existence.”

Ulfric drummed his fingers lightly against his thigh.

“Are you sure you did not misinterpret your answer?”

“I am sure.”

“… What, exactly, was your god's answer?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Since it is _my_ existence being ended, I think that makes it very much my concern. Don't you agree?”

The elf hesitated again, before shrugging.

“It was a vision. A unpleasantly vivid vision of the past and of my probable future if I did not take steps to control my actions rather better than I have been doing thus far. I do not want to relive it. If you care that much, you may ask Auri-El to show you the vision too. Who knows? He might listen, even if you are a mortal. _You_ might actually have enjoyed most of it.”

“I very much doubt I would enjoy anything anyone who apparently endorses the obliteration of both the lives and the souls of an entire species of sentient beings showed me,” Ulfric said, pointedly.

The Thalmor's lips thinned unpleasantly.

"Do I detect the faintest shreds of moral outrage, Jarl Ulfric?"

"You do," Ulfric said, bluntly.

The elf tsked disapprovingly.

“I find that slightly hypocritical, coming from a man who is proud of his ancestors for their role in hunting every sentient Falmer on the surface of Skyrim to extinction and ensuring that those who were not killed were so degraded that they _have_ no souls and no afterlife now. That my ancestor is encouraging us to return the favor now is, I agree, unfortunate for you-- and I, since I seem to have, unfortunately, become more fond of you than I should be-- but your moral objections to the act are hardly fair."

"You are fond of me, but you will kill me?" Ulfric echoed, flatly. "And what of Elof, who died for you?"

A short, pause. The elf's hand twitched slightly.

"I am trying not to think about him, to be honest. Ultimately, however, I would rather you were disappointed with me than that Auri-El was. Auri-El's wisdom is a great deal deeper than mine, and I am more fond of him than either of you; his displeasure, therefore, would hurt me more. In the end, you are not the first I have killed of whom I have been fond. I daresay-- if you are unwise enough to put off my execution long enough to allow me to escape-- you will also not be the last."

Ulfric was not strongly religious.

He knew the Nine existed, and he knew Talos watched over him, and he knew his soul would go to Sovngarde when he eventually did die. He believed, firmly, that every man had the right to choose his own afterlife, even if that afterlife was Oblivion. That, however, was about it.

To hear this Thalmor speak of his god so casually, as if he was not some being as vague and distant as the stars in the sky whose main job was providing good fortune and protecting souls, but rather… an officious relative, willing to be actively sought out for advice, and who was obeyed even when unwelcome advice was given, was bewildering. Ulfric did not enjoy feeling bewildered.

He felt his temper fraying. 

"If your... ancestor... seeks revenge for Ysgramor's conquest, his revenge is misguided. The Falmer started that feud. They attacked us first. They killed every man in Skyrim save Ysgramor and his sons. They had only themselves to blame for their fate.”

“I strongly doubt that is his only reason. But let us be fair, Jarl Ulfric: 'Every man in Skyrim' was exactly one city of settlers at the time. The Falmer may well have started that feud, but your ancestors were... disturbing. They worshiped dragons. They sailed _with_ those beasts to Skyrim, and they cut hearts out in unspeakable rituals to please them. What sane mer would want such settlers multiplying, as men do, like rabbits across their homeland? If the Dunmer here in Windhelm _regularly_ cut out hearts and offered them to dragons, _you_ would not be tolerating their presence in your city.”

“You are lying," Ulfric growled.

_Ysgramor was no such monster._

“Oh yes. Your freedom of religion," the elf said, missing the point entirely, "Of _course_ if the Dunmer wanted to cut out hearts from still-living mer manacled to stone alters for whatever Daedric Prince it was they worshiped, you would let them. That is probably another reason Auri-El is tired of men.”

The desire to deck the elf grew stronger inside him.

“If they did that, obviously I would execute them.”

“Then you should be more forgiving of the Falmer. You cannot have it both ways, unless you feel that you, too, deserve the fate the Thalmor will eventually deliver to you.”

“My ancestors would never have committed the atrocities you describe. The Falmer did not fall upon them to stop the Dragon Worship. We ourselves rose up against the dragons on our own. The Falmer fell upon us because they were treacherous, petty, cowardly and greedy, and did not like our strength or our ability to best them when competing for Skyrim's resources.”

“Cling to your blindness if you will. But even if you were right, you should still be forgiving. Look at the Dunmer. You force them, refugees Skyrim once welcomed with friendly, open arms, into the Grey Quarter. Why? Because they live longer than you. Because if you let them have the same right to buy houses that Nords do and gave them the right to earn the same wages, they would live so long that they soon might occupy most of Windhelm. There would be no housing, no land, and no jobs for Nords. In effect, they would out-compete you for resources, especially if the whole of Morrowind came. Though such strength is in them, they are not Nords, and so, without directly breaking the promises your ancestors made to them, you are doing what you can to drive them forth. If it works, you will be pleased. But if it does not, you cannot look at the disdain you treat them with now and tell me that your sons or your grandsons will not one day lift theirs swords and--”

“Silence,” Ulfric said roughly, standing.

The elf stood too, eyes glittering-- not with malice, Ulfric thought, but with the sort of enjoyment a child might have felt throwing stones at a particularly cantankerous mudcrab. He was being baited, then, and probably for no better reason than that this elf wanted an excuse to crush his self-confessed fondness, and get on with the business of properly obeying the genocidal ancestor he worshiped as his god.

Well, Ulfric refused to give him that excuse.

He would not--

“Does it _bother_ you," the elf said, friendly and warm, "to hear how very alike you are to those _treacherous, petty, cowardly and greedy_ kin of mine whom your ancestors obliterated millennia ago? I could point out more parallels to you, if you wanted.”

Slowly, Ulfric's hand bunched into a fist.

Slowly, he loosened it.

"Your words are lies. Naturally, they bother me."

 _But were they all lies?_ a cold voice whispered.

_If your ancestors had not written their promises in stone, would you have cast them forth?_

_If the dark elves had tried to stand proudly, would you have allowed them to do so?_

_Do you even know what the Grey Quarter looks like, these days?_

They were lies, Ulfric told the voice firmly, and thrust such useless thoughts from him.

“I am _nothing_ like your kin."

"You have not been listening very well, if you can still say that. Shall I repeat the parallels for you?"

"No, you shall not. Allow me to share with you, elf, one key difference between us. The Falmer attacked an unprepared, defenseless town in the night. They were too cowardly for honest combat, and too weak to stand against the mere five hundred--,"

“And their dragons,” the Thalmor interrupted, pleasantly, “You must not forget their dragons. It sounds a lot worse, for my long-dead kinfolk, if one forgets those."

The elf was infuriating.

He was infuriating because he was on speaking terms with a god who wanted Nords dead.

He was infuriating because he would not stop obeying said god, even though said god was clearly insane.

Finally, he was infuriating, because he was harder to dislike then Ulfric wanted him to be. When an enemy had but to speak one lie, say just, 'I will leave the stones in place,' to be spared, it was... Nordicly honest of him to admit the truth so openly. He was despicable. He was a Thalmor, so naturally he was. Still, Ulfric wished the elf would stop displaying such honest courage. It would be easier, then, to despise him properly.

"It is a pity," Ulfric said, after a while, "That your god wants us dead."

"It is," the elf agreed.

Silence, for a little while.

“You will fail, Ondolemar. You and your god both. Nords will not fall to the likes of the Thalmor.”

“I said once before, I believe, that our goals are unlikely to bear fruit in this century or perhaps even in this age, if it is as short as the last one. But we are a patient lot. We have long memories. Far longer than that of most men. We will see who is stronger between us in the end.”


	25. The Best Laid Plans (Of Khajiits and Men)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Best Laid Plans (Of Khajiits and Men)

Jorleif sighed deeply.

Sighing deeply wasn't unusual, when one's job was working as a steward for Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak. As a loyal subject of said Jarl, Jorleif would, naturally, have thrown himself between Ulfric and... well, a variety of unpleasant things that weren't _too_ lethal with barely a second thought, but that did not change the fact that sometimes Jorleif wished, secretly, that old Hoag-- or indeed anyone with a better temper and more belief in racial equality in general-- had been ruling.

In Hoag's day, people who weren't Nords had had the gold to pay the fines for things as trivial as assault. In Hoag's day, two brawlers would not have been delivered to the Steward of Windhelm to deal with by too-diligent guards who didn't seem to realise that Jorleif already had too many duties to worry about as it was.

The Khajiit in front of him said his name was Y'ssir, and he'd tried to kill the wood elf because he was a Thalmor agent who'd caught the Khajiit worshiping Talos.

The wood elf said his name was Malborn, that he was an  _ex-_ Thalmor, and that the Khajiit was an assassin sent to kill him for defecting.

The guard who'd arrested them, Gariyn, said that he'd been praying at the Shrine of Talos outside the city when he'd happened to notice the scuffle between the two and had intervened. He'd brought them in, he said, because he didn't know who'd started the fight, and neither had the gold to pay the bounty for attempted murder.

Forty gold pieces, Jorlief thought, was not an exorbitant sum.

Why for Talos' sake could neither one of them pay it?

"Because he said he would pay at first and I was  _hoping_ that if I didn't, I might actually get a peaceful night's sleep in jail without having to watch my back," the wood elf said, as if all of this was somehow Jorleif's fault.

"Khajiit thought he could, but he has fallen on hard times," was the Khajiit's mournful response.

"You're 'he' now?" the wood elf said crossly, glaring at him, "You were 'I' two hours ago, when you sent me the Thalmor's regards."

"He does not know what you mean," the Khajiit said, sounding wounded, "He only wishes to live instead of being dragged off by your kind in the night."

"Oh for Auri-El's sake--,"

Jorleif sighed deeply again.

"So," he said, when their bickering threatened to devolve once more into blows, "You, Malborn, at least can pay the fine?"

"Yes. I have forty gold."

Wonderful, Jorleif thought.

"Pay it, then, and go."

"Can't I pay his for him, and sleep for a day or two in peace?"

The Khajiit's fur bristled.

"This Khajiit would not accept a Thalmor's gold. He has enough to pay for himself, if needed."

Jorleif felt a headache developing.

"If you can both pay, why don't you?"

Silence, from both of them. Well, they had a right to do time if they preferred that, even if Jorleif thought something was very wrong with people who seemed to think jail cells could be treated like inns. Still, since that was what Jarl Ulfric seemed to be using the dungeon for currently, it was no wonder people were getting the wrong idea.

Though actually, that was another problem. What if these two were  _both_ Thalmor, and this whole thing was a set-up to get a message through to the Justiciar?

The obvious solution was just to take the whole problem to Jarl Ulfric and let him make the call.

Jorleif went with it.

"Which one do you think is lying, Jorleif?" Jarl Ulfric asked him, when he'd explained matters briefly.

Jorleif's gut instinct was that the Khajiit was lying and the wood elf really had defected, but Jorleif had locked up Wuunferth the Unliving once before for being the Butcher; an unfortunate incident for all parties concerned, and one he felt was best left forgotten. Jorleif did not have much faith in his gut instinct.

"I don't know. I don't see that we need to waste too many resources finding out either. Everyone knows you are sensitive about the Thalmor," Jarl Ulfric's hand clenched. Jorleif backtracked hastily, "Elves in general, that is. Both of them could be lying, and it's only _attempted_ murder at worst anyway. Nobody actually died."

Not that Jarl Ulfric would have cared much if they had, likely, since they were not Nords. Jorleif didn't say that though.

"And yet you brought the matter to my attention?"

"You have a Thalmor in your cells. It seemed a bit rash to me to lock them all up together on the off-chance either of them are being honest."

"Lock them up," Ulfric ordered, after a short, contemplative silence. "But post a guard with a good memory down there too, hidden, to listen to what they say to each other. That should get to the bottom of the matter soon enough."

Well, as plans went, it wasn't a bad one.

Most of Jarl Ulfric's weren't.

Jorleif gave orders for Gariyn to escort the prisoners to the cells, and himself stayed in the barracks to pick out the unfortunate guard who was going to be stuck crouching in the ramp-way for Talos knew how long until Jarl Ulfric's paranoia was satisfied. Who to choose, though? He looked about the collection of Stormcloaks lounging, joking, and laughing at the tables for someone he didn't like. Ah-- there was Curgan, near the bunks, a young lad who'd laughed at Jorleif's mustache the other day and fancied himself quite the wit.

Jorleif bore down on him with malicious intent.

He would do nicely.


	26. Poor Life Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Poor Life Choices

Malborn felt sick.

It was a side-effect of a combination of factors; being a coward; being a servant, not a soldier or a war-hero; and, finally, most importantly, being _stupid_ enough to let himself be talked into crossing Elenwen by a Blade with an axe of her own to grind who didn't care in the slightest what happened to Malborn after she'd finished using him.

Why had he been stupid enough to let himself be talked into that?

Why had he been stupid enough to assume that Windhelm's cells would be as secure as Solitude's?

Gods, why had he been stupid enough to have _not put two and two_ together when Ambarys Rendar had droned on about a Justiciar in the cells? Why had he not _remembered_ that when he'd had the suicidal idea that a night or two in Ulfric Stormcloak's cells might be safer than Rendar's worm-riddled rotting wooden rooms that could not be barred at all and stank of sewage and let in the bitter cold?

“I'll pay my fine,” he'd said, the moment he'd seen the Altmer.

It hadn't worked. Of course it hadn't. Luck hadn't been with him since--

Y'ffre knew when it had last been with him.

“Your goods have been confiscated, elf,” the guard said, pitilessly, “Maybe next time you'll pay the fine and think twice about brawling with Khajiits in front of the local shrines.”

There were exactly four cells here. Malborn's sickness bordered on nausea when the assassin was led in after him. He stumbled once on nothing as he was led to his cell. The gaps between the bars were too big. The torchlight was too dim. Worse, the cell he was in had a nice view into the other three along the wall to his right, which meant that they, too, had a good view of him.

“Where are you going?” he said, dismayed, when the guard turned and headed for the ramp like-- like instead of keeping watch or actually being useful he was going to abandon Malborn to the nonexistent mercy of two Thalmor agents who had probably already devised ten different ways to kill him painfully with the torture implements outside the cell.

“Stop,” _please,_ “Sir, why aren't-- Don't you need to watch us? You need to stay." _They'll kill me._

The guard didn't listen. He didn't reply at all, and why had Malborn ever thought he would? Everyone knew of Ulfric Stormcloak's reputation. What madness had taken him, that he'd thought even for one moment that that tyrant would care what happened to a Bosmer in his cells?

Malborn wasn't going to last two days in here.

Malborn wasn't going to last even one night.

He pressed himself into the farthest corner of his cell, and tried to control his trembling.

Don't sleep, he told himself, firmly.

There wasn't any danger of it now, but give it twelve hours, twenty hours, forty eight hours...

_If you sleep, they will kill you before you wake._

_Don't sleep, don't take your eyes off them, and scream if they--_

“Are you well, cousin?” the former High-Justiciar of Markarth said.

No, Malborn damn well wasn't. He also wasn't the cousin of this officer who drank fine wines at Elenwen's parties and scorned the Empire for having the sense to bend a knee to live, and who worked for the government who'd purged Malborn's family two decades ago for having the temerity to question the ideals, morals, and religion of his Aedra-cursed government.

“Truly, Malborn, you do not look well.”

“I'm not well,” Malborn said automatically, wondering what Ondolemar was plotting. He could not genuinely care. Even before Malborn had turned traitor, it had been a long time since his health had been anyone's concern. “You don't look too well yourself, Commander. I take it that prison and torture don't agree with your constitution?”

“Prison does not. There has, however, been remarkably little torture, thus far,” the Altmer said, lips thinning. “Jarl Ulfric has shown… unexpected restraint. A sensible decision. There is, naturally, no wisdom in courting the fury of the Aldmeri Dominion.”

A fresh stab of fear assailed Malborn.

Was Ulfric Stormcloak in league with the Thalmor?

The Khajiit spoke, then; a soft, inaudible mutter, directed at Ondolemar, that made the Altmer stiffen and raise an eyebrow, green eyes narrowing. Why had his enemies been given cells right next to each other? But then, what was the alternative? With four cells and three prisoners, the only other option would have been to put the assassin right next to him, and Malborn didn't like the idea of that either. His hands pricked with needles of sweat. He wiped them off against his shirt, over and over, wishing they'd stop.

What was the Khajiit saying to him?

What did the Khajiit know that Malborn didn't?

“A panic attack will not help your situation, cousin,” Ondolemar said then.

“I'm panicking, not having a panic attack,” Malborn snapped. “There's a difference.”

The Justiciar didn't reply to that. He didn't, in fact, say much at all. He just watched Malborn like he might actually be worried about him, and the hypocrisy of that concern coming from a Thalmor sitting next to a Khajiit who, by contrast, was looking at Malborn as if he was nothing more or less than a purse of gold waiting to be opened up, was--

Gods, what was it?

Why, for pity's sake, weren't any of his gods having mercy on him? He worshiped enough of them. He worshiped the Divines, he worshiped the Aedra and he even worshiped Talos. Why couldn't just _one of them_ help him? He wasn't a picky mer. He didn't care which of them helped him, so long as help came.

“You were a good servant,” Ondolemar said, Divines-knew how long later, jarring him from a hopeless jumble of useless, half-baked promises and prayers, “How came you to Eastmarch? It is not like you, to land yourself in jail so far from Haafingar.”

“I would have thought _you_ would have already known why.”

"What news do you think me capable of recieving, inside these cells?"

He... didn't know Malborn had betrayed?

He had to, though. He had to have deduced it. He'd seemed to recognise the assassin.

It was a logical deduction that when there was an assassin sent by Elenwen there was also a reason for that assassin being sent. The Thalmor weren't idiots, no matter how much he wanted them to be.

Malborn's hands twisted, nervously.

Just what cruel game was it that the Altmer wanted to play here?

“… The Ambassador fired me,” he said shortly.

“Why?"

“I don't think I am obligated to tell you.”

“True enough. I did not ask you to tell me, however, because you were obligated to do so. I asked only because I was curious about the First Emissary's reason for firing a competent servant like yourself. Her parties will be harder to endure without you.”

“I am sure my replacement will be just as capable of offering you Colovian brandy when you ask for it as I was.”

Too biting, that. Elenwen had sent servants to Rulindil for less insolence than he was showing. Thalmor varied in cruelty, but even if Ondolemar had seemed less cruel, and still seemed so, that did not make such blatant disrespect magically safe.

Why had he answered?

Why had he talked to the Altmer at all?

“Your replacement may offer me brandy, but few share your happy gift for picking vintages. Your predecessor certainly did not… You need not fear me, Malborn. It is… disturbing, frankly, that you seem to. I am in jail, like you are. I am hardly in a position to hurt you, even in the unlikely event that your behavior has been such that I am duty-bound to try.”

Wasn't he?

_Wasn't he?_

Ondolemar was an Altmer who avoided Solitude and the Embassy like the plague, true. Beyond the fact that the Altmer liked brandy, despised the Empire, and had been threatened with reeducation if he failed one more time to follow regulations regarding reports and paperwork, Malborn knew little of the Altmer. Still, Ondolemar was a Thalmor who stood exactly one rank below Elenwen and was on speaking terms with her. That said everything Malborn needed to know about what sort of mer he was, deep down.

He didn't say so.

He didn't say anything.

Instead, he clamped his mouth tightly shut, as he should have from the first minute he'd set foot in here, and counted the seconds to go until he would be able to, if he lived, walk free from here. 3600 seconds in an hour. 86400 seconds in a day. Two days in the cells until he was released, minus-- however long it had been, since he'd been locked in here.

Malborn divided his time between counting and praying, and did his best not to shiver under the murderous promise in the Khajiit assassin's eyes that said that when nightfall came, Malborn would be joining his family, and his gods, in Aetherius.

\--O--

Ulfric Stormcloak visited exactly one hour after dinner.

Ondolemar was not pleased to see him. He was not surprised to see him, no, but he was not pleased.

Partly, this was because he now had an audience for any treacherous words and actions that escaped him, and partly this was because Ondolemar resented the fact that it was extremely difficult, even knowing that Ulfric Stormcloak wanted to turn him into a Falmer, to quash the stubborn fondness that lingered in him when he remembered Ulfric severing Linwe's head, or crush the part of him that insisted upon feeling vaguely reassured by the Nord's presence.

Problems all.

It was a greater problem, however, when Ulfric Stormcloak ignored him entirely and went to Malborn instead. Galmar Stone-Fist followed behind.

Malborn looked terrified.

"I understand," Ulfric said, "That you were a servant at the Thalmor Embassy."

Malborn swallowed dryly.

"What do you know of the Embassy, elf?"

"Not much that you would find interesting, sir, I'm sure. I was only hired irregularly for parties. The Ambassador didn't host them more than once every few months, and when she did, I just served drinks. I didn't do much more than that."

"Really? I do not know, Malborn, that I believe you," Ulfric Stormcloak said.

Another dry swallow.

Galmar unlocked the cell. Ulfric advanced on the hapless Bosmer.

Malborn flinched, and Ondolemar stood, feeling vaguely protective.

"He is not lying, Jarl Ulfric. I know him. He is a connoisseur of wines, but if he has any other talents I am not aware of them."

"Thanks," Malborn said, ironically.

"I am speaking to him, not you," Ulfric tossed over one shoulder.

A month ago, Ondolemar would have said that that did not matter, and that Ulfric Stormcloak should be grateful for the unsolicited advice, since he had spoken only out of consideration for the time and effort that Ulfric and Galmar would waste if they planned to extract a confession from the Bosmer on the rack. Now, Ondolemar held his tongue, and merely watched, frowning.

"Who attends the Embassy parties?" Ulfric said.

"I don't know. The same lot each time, but I don't know them all by name. I don't write the invitations, or mix in their circles. You'd do better asking Einar. He's one of yours, isn't he?"

"... You know him?" Ulfric frowned.

"Not well. We had a... mutual friend. I smuggled some weapons into the Embassy for him. He saved me from Rulindil and a frost troll. I haven't seen him since."

"Smuggling weapons into the Embassy does not seem wise of you," Ondolemar could not resist pointing out.

"You think I don't know that? It was a stupid decision. I've regretted it every day since the hour I was talked into doing it by that s'wit."

"The s'wit being...?"

"No one I'd betray to an officer like you, even if I am mad at her."

Disappointing.

"How does one get into the Thalmor Embassy?" Ulfric asked, before Ondolemar could say so, "I assume you did not get in or out by the main entrance."

"Getting out is easy enough," Malborn said, with more courage, apparently, now he was being believed and not threatened, "But I'm not going to tell you how unless you do something about both of them. That Khajiit has tried to kill me once already and even if you do kill him, I just _know_ the Justiciar is going to somehow report all of this back to the Ambassador and make her send ten more after me to replace him."

Ondolemar felt vaguely protective of J'datharr, now.

He felt protective of the Embassy, too.

He could still see their lifeless bodies. Could still feel the _weight_ of their blood staining his sword-arm red.

"Elenwen is a powerful mage, Malborn," Ondolemar said, "Ask yourself: What do you gain from betraying her? It would not be her death. All that would happen--"

"Is that I'll feel better about my family being purged. Yes. I know."

He was a traitor with  _reasons_ , was he?

Ondolemar switched tactics.

"If revenge is your goal, you have chosen a poor target to reveal such sensitive information to. Ulfric Stormcloak is an asset to the Dominion, not an enemy. In fact, if I am not wrong, it was Elenwen who first suggested--"

 _"Silence,_ elf. You know  _nothing of what you speak_ ," Ulfric said, with awful rage.

That was more like it.

That was the sort of rage Ondolemar wanted from the man.

An incandescent, white-hot fury, that would terrify Malborn enough to make him see that holding his tongue and  _surviving_ was a much more sensible choice than betraying the Embassy to Ulfric Stormcloak. Einar knew the way in. Ulfric would find out anyway. There was, surely, no  _need_ for it to be Malborn who invited Elenwen's undying ire with this stupidity, or for Ondolemar to be forced to report him for that treachery.

"Do I not?" he smiled, cruelly, "But we _both_ know that I do, I think."

Malborn was looking back and forth between them, uncertain. Ulfric's fists were clenched white, and his eyes were blazing. In three strides, Galmar-- with less restraint-- had crossed the distance to his cell. Ondolemar stepped back a pace, just shy of the range of his arms. Galmar cursed and fumbled with furious hands for the keys to his cell. He had scant seconds at most, before he was forcefully silenced. Ondolemar made the most of them.

"Did you never read the file on him, Malborn? I understand that it was quite... explicit, regarding his loyalties. There is a reason he has yet to harm me. There is a reason Altmer are not confined to the Grey Quarter, and may own property freely in the best parts of Windhelm. I warn you only as a friend who owes you a debt for the role you played in selecting the vintages that made Elenwen's parties bearable; do not assume that because we do not witness your treason, word will not reach Elenwen anyway of your treachery. It will. And once the extend of your disloyalty has been revealed to the Dominion--"

Galmar Stone-Fist's fist connected solidly with Ondolemar's mouth.

"Stop spewing your lies, _Thalmor,_ if you want to live."

Ondolemar sneered, and felt his teeth stain red with blood.

"You call that a blow? My aunt used to slap me harder than that for skipping classes. You will need to punch much, much harder, _my friend,_ if you wish to trick my cousin into thinking you  _mean_ it. But even then, I wonder if he will truly be so naive as to believe you?"

Galmar, disobligingly, took him at his word.

It turned out that being pummeled into unconsciousness by Galmar this time hurt just as much as it had the last time.

Ondolemar's last, vague memory before his world was lost completely to blackness was a sickening crunch as his nose broke and his ribs snapped... and, in the distance, someone saying something that sounded a bit like like  _stop it, you are going to kill him_ that made him feel vaguely pleased in a way that made absolutely no sense at all.


	27. A Matter of Honour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Matter of Honor

Ondolemar woke feeling warm.

His first, distant, thought was that he wasn't as sore as he should have been, for someone who'd just been beaten senseless by Galmar. His second was that maybe he had been beaten to death after all, and he was warm because this was Aetherius.

Neither thought was very helpful.

He redirected his energies towards opening his eyes.

The room he was in was unfamiliar. It was a guest room of some sort, though; of Nordic workmanship. The floor was wood, not stone, and the fire was no miserable brazier but a proper, blazing hearth. Galmar was nodding, eyes shut, against the wall near the door. Not Aetherius, but not rescue either then. Ondolemar sat up, and was again surprised by the lack of soreness. Either he'd been unconscious for days, or Ulfric Stormcloak had wasted a healer on him. Option one boded ill for Malborn, and any escape attempt involving J'datharr. Option two just meant that Ulfric Stormcloak was lacking in common sense.

Hopefully, Ondolemar thought, rising from the bed, it was option two. Ulfric had proven he lacked it often enough in the past.

“You're awake, I see,” Galmar said, from behind him.

Unfortunate, that he'd woken, but he was not a threat that Ondolemar could do much about at present. He neither stiffened nor turned, continuing his path for the fire.

“I hope you've learnt your lesson, elf, about lying about the affairs of your betters.”

“I have, Galmar,” Ondolemar tossed over one shoulder, stretching a leg before the flames, “Do so, and I get a proper bed and a fire. I am lamenting already the fact that I did not try this in earnest weeks ago.”

Galmar made an impatient gesture.

“Do feel free to strike me again,” Ondolemar said, silkily, “If this is to be my healing ward, I would far rather spend my time bleeding here than whole inside my cell.”

“I bet you would,” Galmar said grimly.

Silence, for a while, from both of them.

“Why are you not returning me to my cell?” Ondolemar asked, at last.

“Missing the bloodworks already, are you?”

“Hardly,” Ondolemar sneered, lip curling. “Such kindness, however, is unlike you. It is even less like your beloved Jarl,” a lie. Ulfric seemed, deep down, to be something of a romanticist. He would need to curb that tendency, or he'd end up like Elof, “Thus, I find myself curious as to what you intend by it.”

“My _Beloved_ _Jarl_ ,” Galmar returned, coolly, “Is busy questioning the wood elf. The wood elf wouldn't talk with you and the Khajiit there, even after I told him you'd gone down like a sickly elk under a well-aimed shot by the hunter's bow. Jarl Ulfric had you both removed.”

Ondolemar frowned, turning back to the fire. Hopefully, Malborn would have the sense not to tell secrets to Ulfric Stormcloak. But at least if he didn't have such sense, Ondolemar would not, having been absent, be obligated to report the matter back to Elenwen. Small mercies.

More silence. Ondolemar put another log on the fire, and extracted a splinter from his fingers.

“Why do you lot even come into Skyrim if you can't withstand a touch of ice?” Galmar scoffed.

“One day, when my situation improves and it is _you_ who are _my_ prisoner, I will throw you into a ring without weapons or armour with half a dozen mud crabs, and ask you why _you_ are so fond of Skyrim when you are incapable of defeating the simplest of her enemies.”

“I'm not seeing the parallel, elf.”

“But then, that is hardly my fault. It was clear enough, or would have been to anyone with a modicum of intelligence.”

Galmar sent him a dark look.

Ondolemar looked around the room for anything which might double as a weapon in a pinch. There was something that looked like a rope on the curtains which might double as a garrotte if he could get to it without Galmar noticing. There was also the poker for the fire; a rather more solid choice, but still, problematically, not long enough to let him get close enough to Galmar to strike him without being cleaved in two by the man's greataxe.

Ondolemar indulged himself anyway in fondly imagining the various painful ways a poker could be used to terminate Galmar Stone-Fist.

It passed the time, until it didn't.

“I propose a bet,” Ondolemar said, eventually.

“A bet,” Galmar echoed flatly.

“I assume you are as bored as I am?”

“You assume being bored makes me just as desperate as it seems to make you.”

Ondolemar folded his arms in front of his chest, feeling peeved.

“I am not desperate.”

“Do you make a point of offering bets to everyone who captures you then?”

“Of course not. _Usually,_ I am able to entertain myself with plotting and carrying out more useful things, like killing my guards, misleading my interrogators, and escaping. I bet only with those of whom my government approves, tacitly or explicitly, and who I am thus not permitted outright to harm.”

“You didn't seem to have much of a problem killing us on the way to Windhelm.”

“If it were someone less close to Jarl Ulfric than you are guarding me now, I would be doing my best to kill them too.” _Maybe._ “I am not sure, however, that his war would last long with you dead. You are a reassuringly solid bulwark between him and any assassins, you see. Thus, since I lose regardless of the success of my assassination attempt, there is little point in wasting my energy trying, unless I seek to return to this room. A waste, you will agree, since I am already in it.”

Galmar looked unimpressed by this logic.

“Fine. Do not make the bet. I care not,” Ondolemar said.

Was there a window behind that curtain? If there was, would it be possible to see the sunlight if he opened it? Yes, and yes, were the answers when he moved there. There were no clouds this day. Auri-El's grace shone down, fierce and warm. It would set soon. The sky was already red.

Sunlight through an inferior Nordic window was, naturally, not as good as sunlight refracted through ten thousand shimmering crystals, reflected over and over until the whole world blazed with colours that no mere paint, stone or wood could ever hope to match. It was, however, infinitely better than the spiderweb which sat in roughly the same position in Ondolemar's cell, and was occupied by an optimistic arachnid which-- though he'd not observed it see success in his own time there-- seemed to hope it would one day catch something more substantial in its nets than dust.

How long, before he next saw the sun?

Days? Weeks?

Long enough, probably, to make it worth basking in what remained of it in until he was thrown once more into his cell. And so Ondolemar held the curtain open and just… watched. Soft, that gold-red light, and reassuring. Beneath it, the anxious, weary restlessness began to fade. One day, he would be a part of that light. One day, time would end, space would unravel, and there would be no discord, pain, or strife.

One day, there would be no place where Oblivion's chaos overlapped with the order of Aetherius.

One day, there would be no Mundus, and no men.

One day.

And really-- Ondolemar told his heart sternly, when it insisted on feeling a queer, too-familiar ache at that thought-- he had been sufficiently sporting. He had been honest. He had made it clear that he was to be considered an enemy. It did not seem to be working, admittedly, but there were only so many times that one could ask an enemy one was failing signally to hate as one ought to to turn around and defend themselves so that one was at least stabbing them in the front instead of the back before common sense demanded that one give up trying to be fair and just get on with the job of terminating them.

Not that Ondolemar  _could_ terminate Ulfric, until Elenwen ordered it, but it was the principle of the thing. The readiness to be  _prepared to_. The--

“... What was the bet you wanted to make?” Galmar said, jolting him from such musings.

"Mm?" Ondolemar said, unhelpfully. "Oh, that. It is a moot point, is it not? I was under the impression you would not lower yourself to making bets with a Thalmor."

"I never said that."

"You implied it rather strongly, however."

"I am unimplying it."

"That is _not_ a word."

Galmar glowered at him.

"Are you saying you don't understand my meaning, elf, or that you are objecting to it on principle?"

"The latter, naturally. What did the common tongue ever do to you, to merit such abuse?"

"... You're mad."

"Perhaps, but my madness is under excellent regulation, and will soon vanish entirely. I assure you, my mind has it well in check."

Galmar muttered something uncomplimentary beneath his breath.

Ondolemar turned back to the window.

"What was the bet?"

"Oh? Will you make it with me?"

"Not blindly, and not without knowing what the terms were first."

Ondolemar considered the matter. Turned, at last, back to Galmar; the curtain once more covered the last rays of the setting sun.

Odd, how staring at the sun directly could make everything inside here seem so dark. There was a metaphor there somewhere, probably, but he could not think what it was. It did not matter. His eyes would adjust soon enough.

"The bet is relatively simple. I will bet one favor that I, an Altmer of Alinor, am capable of drinking you beneath the table. Obviously you, too, will bet that one favor that you, a true Nord, will drink me under the table. The loser gives the favor. The winner receives it."

"... What is the favor?"

"Anything. We will disallow my asking for my freedom on your side, and I am unwilling to offer sexual favors on mine, or dismemberment," Galmar looked revolted; Ondolemar sympathised, but with these things it never hurt to be  _sure_ , "but all else is allowable, from high treason to freely handing me Jarl Ulfric's favorite sword. There is some spice in that, I think... unless you think you are not capable of drinking me under the table after all, that is."

Predictably, Galmar's eyes flashed.

"I can out-drink any high elf."

"And I," Ondolemar returned, eyes glittering, "can out-drink any _Nord."_

A moment Galmar glared at him. Then:

"You disappoint me, Galmar. I had not taken you for a coward."

"... Alright, elf," Galmar growled, advancing on him, "You're on."

\--O--

Malborn was proving uncooperative.

First, he wanted the Thalmor gone. Both of them, though Ulfric was still not convinced the Khajiit _was_ a Thalmor.

Then he said he did not want to say anything after all. It was a full hour before Ulfric managed to work out why. The wood elf thought him in league with the Thalmor.

"I am not," Ulfric gritted out through clenched teeth, "In league with Elenwen. Nor do I report to that... woman."

"So you say."

"She wants you dead, you said. Surely the fact that I have yet to kill you is proof enough for you that we are enemies."

It wasn't though, apparently. Malborn swallowed, and pressed himself more firmly against the back corner of the wall.

"If you are doing this because you believe the Justiciar, you are behaving, likely, just as he wishes you too. Do you truly think he warned you just because he liked you? Were I truly reporting to that harpy, I would report that you had considered betraying, and that he had stopped you from revealing yourself. From what you know of her, do you think it would make any difference to her if you had spoken or not, having come so close to it? Do you think the Justiciar altruistic enough to invite her ire for so openly defending you?"

"I don't... I mean, I didn't..." Malborn stammered, "It's just that she called for her horse and rode to Helgen with minimal guard the  _moment_ it was reported that you'd been caught, and then the next thing we knew..." he trailed off.

Had the wood elf been capable of fighting back, or been defiant in any way at all, Ulfric might have been tempted to hit him. He wanted to hit  _something._

As it was, he concentrated on breathing deep, calming breaths.

"She wants me alive just as she wants Tullius alive, Malborn, that our two sides might spend our strength against each other instead of spending it withstanding the might of the Aldmeri Dominion. Were she to appear in front of me in Windhelm, I would cleave her head from her neck."

"... Really?" Malborn said, cautiously.

"That I swear by Talos."

Malborn passed a trembling hand through his hair.

"Well... alright then. But you can't leave me in here. Not with both of them. I won't last the night. Even if do-- gods, I need to get to Morrowind."

"I will allow you to pay your fine," Ulfric promised, mentally apologising to Jorleif, "And I will see to it that the Khajiit is not allowed to pay his. That should give you a two-day start."

"You will?"

"I will," Ulfric promised, patiently. "Where is the Embassy, and where are the entrances that lead to it?"

"Well, it's more of an exit than an entrance, but there's a cave where they dump..." Malborn licked his lips, looking ill, before continuing with a forced: "I mean, when Rulindil is finished with them, the dead are thrown down a pit for the trolls. We jumped down it. I don't know that you could climb up though..."

"That is what ladders and ropes are for. I assume you are able to mark it on a map for me?"

"Yes. I mean-- yes, but I'm not very good at geography. You'd be better off asking Einar. I saw him mark it on his map when we left."

One day, Ulfric would have to remember to ask Einar Dragonborn to let him see this map of his.

"Very well then. I'll ask him. And are there other entrances?"

"You can get in by invitation. There's some sort of an invisible wall the wizards set up though about the perimeter. I don't think it's possible to get to the Embassy via the mountains."

"And if those wizards were killed, would the wall fall?"

"I don't know. I'm not a mage."

"You have not seen them renew it, however?"

"I spent most of my time serving drinks and cleaning, not checking out the defenses."

The wood elf's uneasiness was returning. The matter, Ulfric decided, was plain enough. Malborn had defected, but he wanted no part in any war.

"You would stand a greater chance of aiding your countrymen if you stood against injustice instead of fleeing from it," Ulfric said, trying patriotism, "Have you never considered it?"

"I considered it when I helped smuggle weapons in for Einar. Look how it worked out for me. I feel like a rabbit on the run from a wolf. I wasn't lying when I said it was the stupidest decision I ever made. I'm tired of revenge. It's done, now. I want to live, not... not spend my time hunting other mer down like animals or fleeing like this, too tired to run and too terrified to sleep. I'm not like you. I'm not a hero."

Half-a-dozen cliches sprang to mind. Heroes weren't born, they were made. The first step along the path of justice was often the hardest. If you did not stand up against evil, who would stand up against evil for you? The gods helped those who helped themselves.

Ulfric didn't speak them.

He was inclined to agree with this elf's assessment.

Malborn was not soldier material. In his first battle, he was the sort of elf who'd drop his sword and bolt for the nearest cave.

"Is Morrowind truly safe for you?" Ulfric said, at last.

"Nowhere is truly safe when you've crossed the Thalmor," Malborn said, with an unhappy smile, "But it's as far as you can get from Alinor without leaving Tamriel, and not many of the dark elves worship Talos there, so the Thalmor don't concern themselves with it as much as they do places like here."

"Do you worship Talos?"

"Yes, but only to spite the Thalmor. I've no idea if he actually listens to me all that much, seeing as he's man's god and I'm a mer."

Ulfric had no idea either. Still, that the wood elf worshiped Talos made him one cut better than the average elf, as far as Ulfric was concerned. And then, because even if the elf wasn't going to continue fighting the Thalmor openly, he'd still played a role in giving them a bloodier nose than anyone in Skyrim had since the Great War:

"I do not have the resources to guard your journey across the border, but I will have Jorleif speak to the master of my stables. I will have a week's worth of rations packed for you, and loan you a horse for the journey."

Malborn opened his mouth and closed it again, swallowing dryly.

"What if it dies?" he said, voice small.

"Then it dies," Ulfric said, dismissively. "In Skyrim, many horses do."

Malborn swallowed again, looking dangerously close to weeping.

"I will leave you for now," Ulfric said, stepping back, "The guards will come to release you once I have sorted matters out with Jorleif."

"I'll be praying for you, sir," Malborn called as he left, "I don't... that is, I'm starting think you won't be the biggest disaster since the Wolf Queen after all if you do become king."

Ulfric's lips twitched, reluctantly.

"Your vote of confidence is appreciated, elf. I shall sleep the better tonight for knowing I am so highly regarded."

\--O--

Galmar was a good drinker. Unexpectedly so.

Ondolemar, on his seventh bottle of mead, told him so.

"You're not so bad yourself," said Galmar, with grudging respect, and downed his eighth.

"Picking mead was unfair," Ondolemar sighed, watching him. "It ought to have been wine. You have an unfair advantage."

"Wine is expensive. This idea was stupid enough to begin with without wasting more of our treasury than we need to," Galmar said, unsympathetically. "Now shut up and drink."

Ondolemar, obligingly, did.

\--O--

The Khajiit proved much less cooperative than Malborn.

He stuck to his story that he'd been worshiping Talos above the city, and that he'd once worked in Haafinger before he'd been evicted for not being able to pay the Empire's taxes, and that he'd tried to kill the wood elf because he'd seen him on friendly terms with the Thalmor there and had assumed them to be friends.

Ulfric had few ties in Haafinger. There was no way of working out if the Khajiit's tale was true or not.

"He has not much gold," the Khajiit said plaintively, "He tried explaining this to Jarl Elisif, but she told him she delegated all matters to her steward."

That, at least, sounded exactly like the Jarl of Solitude.

Ulfric compromised, in the end. He locked the Khajiit inside a guest room under guard. Once Malborn had left safely, the cat would serve his time in the jails. If he stayed nicely inside his cell, Ulfric would assume Malborn to be mistaken. If he tried escaping to hunt down Malborn, the Khajiit would be assumed to be a spy, and Ulfric would feel no qualms cutting him down. Not, admittedly, that he would have felt many anyway, but one did not execute Khajiits just because they were Khajiits.

With this grim reminder to himself, Ulfric departed for his throne room, and sent word that he wished to speak with Jorleif.

\--O--

"We're shtrong," Galmar slurred.

"Itsh a good shing," Ondolemar smiled, raising his... twelth? Thirteenth? bottle? "Y'need t'be shtrong."

"We do. We're shtronger than you milkdrinkers. We'll crack y'r skullsh into pebblesh."

Ondolemar frowned at him. There seemed to be two Galmars, just at present, so he frowned at the one on the left.

"Thatsh not very nice."

"We don' care 'bout bein' nice," Galmar said, belligerently. "Not t'your kind."

"Oh. Well that'sh fair enough t'en."

"It ish."

Ondolemar reached for the crate, and came back empty-handed. A devastating development. Misery consumed him.

"Why aren't y'drinking?" Galmar slurred, frowning. "Given up already?"

"We're out've mead," Ondolemar said, unhappily.

"Buck up, elf. I know where there's s'more."

Ondolemar's spirits rallied.

"Where?"

"C'mon. I'll show you. This way."

Galmar stood and swayed, dangerously unsteady.

Ondolemar, concerned, lent him an arm. Racial prejudice had its place, but it's place was for times when there wasn't an earthquake shaking the floor. Apparently, Galmar agreed with this sensible viewpoint, because he took the arm and together, they made it to the door.

"Um, sir..." a guard stammered, uncertainly, "Are you supposed to be--?"

"Out've my way, lad," Galmar said.

"Yes," Ondolemar agreed, "Out've our way."

"B-but... I mean, yes, Commander," the guard said, stepping aside with truly marvelous balance.

Ondolemar admired that balance. No earthquakes were going to shake that Nord. He wished he knew what the Nord's trick was.

"We're shtronger than you milkdrinkrs," Galmar said, when he asked, staggering on.

"Y'said that b'fore."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

A door was pushed open. They entered a ridiculously large room which also had a fire.

"Every room sh'd have a fire," Ondolemar informed Galmar seriously.

"Rubbish," Galmar said. "That'd make us  _soft_."

The cupboard was Galmar's target. On the shelf at the top was a crate of mead. Something fell when they pulled it out, but fortunately it wasn't any of the precious bottles of mead. Together, they managed to get it to the table.

"Who's bottle was't up to?" Ondolemar said, when they'd both sat.

"Yours. Drink y'r mead, elf," Galmar said belligerently, "Y'll not be mentioning y'r lies again when we're done."

"Y're wrong. I'm an Altmer and I'm going to--,"

"I don't care. Drink up. I'm not los'n to an _elf."_

Ondolemar picked up bottle number x-- he'd solve for x when the floor stopped moving, and he could make it safely back to the old room to count-- and drank.

\--O--

Jorleif was cooperative. He sighed deeply, when Ulfric told him that he needed to complete whatever paperwork was necessary to sort out the things he needed to sort out, but he didn't complain. A good man, Jorleif. A good steward.

Ulfric returned to the war room, then. Old habits died hard, and Ulfric did not want them to die at all. Talos knew the truce would not last. Soon, the war would resume in earnest.

Ulfric studied the maps.

Useless, such study. He'd studied these same maps for the last two decades. Nothing on them would change save the red and blue flags, and they changed so often planning now was nothing more or less than a waste of his time. He was, he realised, putting off visiting the Justiciar.

He needed to see the elf to verify Malborn's information.

He also needed to see if Wuunferth had been able to patch the elf up properly from his beating. But there was no point, Ulfric told himself, in checking he'd not been beaten to death when a part of Ulfric, remembering that cruel smile that had flickered across that golden face, still itched to finish the job. Galmar was watching him. Galmar, with orders from Ulfric not to kill the elf if he could avoid it, would have matters well in hand.

Ulfric trusted Galmar with his life.

He could certainly trust him with _one_ sharp-tongued Thalmor.

The thought lasted him another hour in the war room, until Yrsarald Thrice Pierced found him and said:

"Sir? I think you should check on the Thalmor."

"Why?"

Yrsarald coughed something unintelligible that sounded suspiciously like 'drinking contest'.

Ulfric took the hint and headed upstairs for the guest room the elf had been put into to recover.

The  _empty_ guest room, if one discounted a table-full of empty mead bottles.

"Where did they go?" Ulfric demanded of the guard on duty.

"Your chambers, sir," Derk coughed.

"... My chambers?" Ulfric echoed.

"Yes, Jarl Ulfric."

Ulfric strode towards his quarters, brow thunderous, silently vowing that if the Thalmor had somehow cast an enchantment on Galmar and harmed him under the pretext of this match, he would wring the elf's slender neck himself. With this firm, if murderous resolution, Ulfric flung the doors open, and--

"What in Oblivion..." he started, blinking and frowning at what _ought_ to have been his austere, uncluttered, personal chambers.

His vision did not clear.

The table was cluttered with bottles, several of which lay scattered about the floor. His closet seemed to have been raided at some point, and for some reason, there was a dagger in the side of his closet. Ondolemar and Galmar were asleep in his bed. Galmar had got most of the blanket and also Ondolemar's arm in a death-grip; the elf, far from seeming displeased by this development, was using Galmar's arm as a pillow and wearing what looked suspiciously like Ulfric's spare clothes. Both of them were snoring.

Ulfric blinked a second time.

Nothing changed.

Ulfric retained enough sense to close the door behind him, before making his way back over to the table of what, upon closer inspection, looked suspiciously like empty bottles of his private, personal stash of Black-Briar Mead. They _were_. Ulfric eyed all sixteen bottles for a long, disbelieving moment. Then he asked Talos for strength and opened the bottom drawer of his dressing cabinet and located the one bottle his shield-brother _didn't_ know about, and downed it to the last drop.

When Galmar woke up, there would, Ulfric promised, glaring down at his sleeping friend, be  _words_ between them.


	28. My Kingdom For (Jorleif's Hangover Remedy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## My Kingdom For (Jorleif's Hangover Remedy)

Ulfric Stormcloak, despite his temper, was not an unfeeling Nord.

No, Ondolemar did not deserve to be in Ulfric's bed or his clothes, but it had not escaped Ulfric's notice that since the war had begun in earnest, Galmar had taken to spending most of his nights in the War Room, sleeping upright in snatches if he slept at all, and assuring anyone who asked him just when he intended to rest properly that he would do so  _soon_ and  _later_. At the moment, Galmar was sleeping deeply indeed. Ulfric might have a few choice words prepared for his shield-brother, but he would not wake him. Not even to part the Thalmor tangled up with him from his undeserved luxuries. The elf was safe, for now until whenever Galmar woke.

The elf had the mind of a fox. He'd probably, Ulfric thought, glaring at him, planned this.

The elf, oblivious, snored on.

How much had they drunk, anyway, his shield-brother and this elf?

What in Oblivion had induced Galmar to enter into such a foolhardy contest with the prisoner?

Pointless, such questions, until either of them woke. Ulfric occupied himself more usefully with locating Derk and sending him downstairs, firstly to tell Yrsarald that matters here were well in hand, and, secondly, to tell Sinfar that stoking the fire this night would not be needed. Sinfar was a good man, but he was no longer as young as he'd once been. He'd developed a habit, recently, of dropping logs when he tried putting more than one of them on the fire at the same time, and he tried to do so more often than he should.

Ulfric might need to ask Jorleif to look into hiring an apprentice for the man soon.

A matter to think on tomorrow, perhaps.

With that thought, Ulfric retrieved _'The Five Songs of King Wulfharth_ ' from where it had fallen beneath his desk, and settled himself into the chair near the side-table to wait out what promised to be a very long night indeed.

\--O--

Galmar Stone-Fist woke feeling like he'd just been slogged one by an angry giant.

Being a Nord, Galmar was used to waking like that (both from hangovers and from _actually_ being slogged one by a angry giant). What he was not used to was waking on something that felt a lot like someone else's bed, and feeling something-- no, _someone--_ warm and alive snuggling, yes, actually  _snuggling,_ into his side. 

_It's not the elf._ _It's not the elf. It's a Nord._

_It's not the elf._

...It was the elf.

Somehow, at some point in the grey fog that shrouded the gap between mead bottle number sixteen and now, Galmar Stone-Fist had managed to land himself with a Thalmor as a bedfellow who'd somehow managed, despite Galmar's right arm clamping him in place, both to burrow his head into Galmar's side and appropriate Galmar's left arm as his pillow. Galmar watched him snore, and tried to decide how much Ulfric would lecture him if he squeezed the damned elf's neck until his golden skin turned blue.

Galmar was in the middle of fondly imagining the various shades of blue a Thalmor might go when choked to death when he realised there were _two_ sets of snoring in the room.

The second set belonged to Ulfric. Ulfric, who was sitting at a desk, a book open across his knee, snoring into his sleeve, and Galmar was, unfortunately, going to be allowed to live this down any time within the next ten years. Galmar suppressed a groan, glaring with as much malice as he could muster at the cause of this whole mess.

The cause of this whole mess snored peacefully.

"This," Galmar informed him, wrenching his arm free, "Is your fault."

The elf, Talos curse him, cracked a bleary eye open, made a pained, hissing sound, and shut it again.

"Weakling," Galmar scoffed.

"I hate you," the elf hissed.

"I hate you more," Galmar returned.

"I assure you, you do not."

"Yes, I do."

"Fine. You do. Happy? Now _stop_ _talking_. We cannot  _all_ be Nords, used to drinking ourselves into Oblivion from the age of three. Some of us suffer from _very bad headaches_ which are _made worse by Nords speaking."_

"I'm not going to stop talking just because an elf tells me to."

"Would you stop talking if I told you to keep speaking, then?"

"No."

"I hate you," the Thalmor said, again. Then: "Tell me, have you ever had the misfortune of hearing a bard named Lurbuk perform?"

"... Yes," Galmar admitted grudgingly, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"At the moment," the elf explained, "there are ten of him playing inside my head. Their discordant melody doubles in volume when you speak. I understand that you enjoy baiting me, but surely, _surely_ , even I do not deserve ten Lurbuks. Even Elenwen does not. Oblige me, therefore, by saving your recriminations for when I am capable of appreciating them. I am sure they will not be less forceful for being delivered six hours later inside my cell."

The elf had a point. Talking hurt, hearing talking was worse, and if Galmar hadn't hated Thalmor on principle, he might just have listened to the bastard.

Still. Galmar was a Nord, and so Galmar glared down at the elf.

"Bit too coherent, aren't you, for someone with ten Lurbuks inside your head?"

The elf huffed and rolled away-- or rather, he tried. Galmar caught his right arm firmly as he did so. He wasn't letting go of the elf until he was up to catching the rat if he tried running or killing Ulfric, and the elf himself didn't seem to be sober enough to work out how to roll with one arm held in place. The elf huffed again, and gave up. After a few minutes, he looked like he just might actually be planning on dropping back off to sleep, which he shouldn't have been thinking of doing even if Galmar  _wasn't_ feeling up to beating him to death just yet.

"Snuggle your head into my side again, elf, and you'll lose it," Galmar warned him.

"Thalmor do not _snuggle_ ," the elf sniffed loftily. "Speaking of losing, however... I believe you owe me a favor."

Silence.

"You do remember our bet, do you not?"

"I don't remember losing it, elf."

"Nor do I."

"Well, you did."

"Do you speak from memory, Galmar, or from an unshakable belief in your own dependability?"

"You lost, elf," Galmar repeated, more firmly.

"And you, I suppose, decided to cast all past enmity aside drag me up onto this _extremely_ comfortable bed with you, when I collapsed, instead of leaving me to shiver on the floor? Oh yes. I can see you _must_ have been the victor of our little game."

"..."

"Quite. But since one of us  _did_ make that very humiliating decision, one of us must take responsibility. After all, it would be sad indeed if there was no prize for either of us save this _wretched_ headache... I blame you, Galmar. I blame you, and I blame the wretch who brewed that swill. _Decent_ wines do not try their best to cleave my head in two. Even _bad_ wines do not feel like _this._ "

There was nothing wrong with "this". This was good, honest mead, and Galmar propped himself up on an elbow to say so, and felt his brain flip in his skull like a slaughterfish on dry land. Galmar shut his mouth. Priorities were priorities. Galmar wasn't going to invite Sifnar's eternal enmity by vomiting on Ulfric Stormcloak's bedclothes. Five minutes passed. Ten. The elf, damn him, was sleeping again.

Galmar glared at him impotently, and gave him another shove.

"Mm awake, Nord. Stop't."

Five more minutes. Then:

"Why doesn't it _bother_ you, elf," Galmar demanded, "that you are sleeping like that when I'd like nothing better than to gut you like you like a fish?"

"You are warm," the high elf said, as if this explained everything.

"I don't think--,"

"We are in accord then. I am trying not to either. Now be silent before I smother you with a pillow."

"Are you threatening me, elf?"

"I am certainly trying."

He deserved something for that, so Galmar mustered his willpower, and wrapped his hand around the elf's throat. That ought to get him some reaction. Sure enough, the elf cracked an irritated eye open once more, glaring balefully at him.

"If you are going to remove your arm, you should at least give me part of the blanket."

"...You realise your life is in peril, goldskin," Galmar pointed out, more puzzled than angry.

"I have ten Lurbuks. If you had ten Lurbuks, would being strangled bother you?"

"No," Galmar admitted.

"There you have it."

Reluctantly, Galmar released his hold. It wasn't as if he was actually allowed to strangle the infuriating elf to death anyway.

"... Why is Jarl Ulfric sleeping at the desk?" the elf asked, after a short pause.

"Because we're sleeping in his bed," Galmar said bluntly.

"Ah."

"'Ah'. That's all you have to say, is it?"

"What did you expect? I'm not up to feeling satisfied yet, even if he does get a crick in his neck from sleeping so awkwardly. Give me another few hours of sleep, and it will come."

Galmar glared again, and held onto the blanket when the elf gave it an experimental tug.

"Oblivion take you," the elf said, with less malice than he'd probably intended, abandoning his attempt in favor of curling into himself, and burying his hands in, not rags but what looked like-- what couldn't possibly be--

"What are you wearing?" Galmar said flatly.

"Clothes."

"Whose clothes?"

"I don't know. I don't remember."

"They  _look_ like Jarl Ulfric's."

"... "

"Take them off."

"No."

"Take them off or I'll make you."

"If my wearing them offends you so much, get me something else to change into first. If you are up to making me, you are clearly suffering far less than I."

Galmar sat up, and then abruptly sat down, white light exploding behind his eyelids.

_"Whatever_ is the matter, Galmar?"

"Shut up, elf."

The elf did. He also took advantage of Galmar's temporary weakness to steal half the blanket.

"When I am sober--," Galmar started, threateningly.

"You will finish that sentence," the Thalmor finished for him, soothingly, "In the meantime, _sleep._  I am not up to dealing with you just now. I am not up to dealing with Nords at all who look as wretched as I feel, so be grateful I am not taunting you about all the things I  _could_ be taunting you about that would require you to try to strangle me in earnest, and stop ruining the first decent night's sleep I have had in one month. More than one month, actually, because stone beds are _not_ comfortable, no matter what Jarl Igmund says about 'tradition'."

Damned elf.

"... You're lucky Ulfric wants you alive," he muttered, at last.

"He certainly seems to, I agree, though I am at something of a loss to determine why."

"So am I."

The elf hmm'd, eyes drifting closed once more.

"Do you sleep like this with _everyone_ who captures you?"

"No. Rejoice in the honor, Galmar. It is yours alone."

Like Oblivion was this an honor. Galmar said so.

"Listen, my overly talkative enemy, we both of us," the elf said, eyes shut, and Galmar noticed, for the first time, sweat beading on a forehead two shades more pallid than its usual yellow-gold, "have the power, I think, to make each other extremely miserable. Ask yourself if you really wish to spend your time doing so. Moreover, do you really wish to wake your beloved Jarl? Because if you persist in talking, you undoubtedly will... though honestly, how he has slept even _this_ long is a mystery to me."

"He's a deep sleeper," Galmar said.

That, or he was pretending, but if Ulfric was pretending, Galmar wasn't going to blow that plan by pointing it out.

"You know, elf, if I--,"

"For Auri-El's sake, Galmar, be silent or I _will_ find a way to silence you."

"I'm safe enough, elf. Neither of us are fit to strangle a skeever."

"I find myself hoping, then, that a hoard of skeevers will descend on this room to rip you to shreds."

Frustrating elf.

"Stop going to sleep."

"Give me two compelling reasons why it is important for me to stay awake."

"I'll be damned before I sleep next to a Thalmor."

"I might point out the obvious, but I won't."

"...I'll be damned before I _willingly_  sleep next to a Thalmor."

"A reason for _you_ to stay awake, I agree, but I have no such scruples."

"... I'll keep talking to you if you try."

"Will you be silent if I do not try?"

"No."

"I thought you would not," the elf said, regretfully.

"You try my patience," Galmar growled.

"Ten Lurbuks," the elf reminded him. "Besides, we are both officers. You bluster often enough, and you toy with defiance, but we both know you will not disobey your beloved Ulfric's orders anymore than I will disobey my decidedly less beloved First Emissary's."

"That witch would approve of this, would she?"

There was a pensive silence.

"No," the elf admitted, "But the Dominion has yet to pass laws directly prohibiting such behavior."

Galmar could just imagine a little handbook of laws carried around by every aspiring Thalmor agent.  _Rule No. 153. Thou shalt not sleep in the same bed and share blankets with thine enemies. Thou shalt also not engage in drinking matches with thine enemies where high treason is one of thy stakes, unless thou knowest that thou shalt win._  

He snorted before he could stop himself.

"And just what, pray tell, is so amusing?"

"You."

The elf's lips thinned, unimpressed.

"Fine. If you are going to laugh at me, I will make my way back to yesterday's guest room. I am sure at least  _one_ guard is stationed outside this room who is capable of guiding me."

Not in those clothes, he wasn't. Galmar lunged even as the elf rolled away and stood, swaying; a feat he was reluctantly impressed the elf had managed at all, if the elf was feeling even one half as bad as he was. His vision went briefly black, but he caught a handful of fur and yanked on it. The mattress sagged as the elf toppled back with a curse.

"You're not going anywhere," Galmar growled, "Not until Jarl Ulfric says so."

The elf sighed deeply.

"For some reason, I am reminded of a pugnacious Kagouti."

"A what?"

"No matter. You would not know them. They do not roam in such cold climates... oh, my head. Was the toppling strictly  _necessary_?"

"Yes."

The elf muttered something unintelligible, and pressed the heels of both palms against his eyes.

"If you're hurting, you deserve it," Galmar said, without sympathy.

"Such beneficence, Galmar," the elf said acidly, "My gratitude leaves me speechless."

Galmar wasn't sure what 'beneficence' was, but he was pretty sure it wasn't saying Thalmor deserved to be hurting.

"You seem to have plenty of words left to me."

"So do you. Would that I could cut your tongue from your throat."

"Would that I were free to drive a sword through your gullet."

The elf did not respond to that. He flopped back on the mattress with another groan and pressed his face beneath one of the pillows, holding it in place with both arms. He did not reach for the covers. Perhaps he knew already that Galmar was planning to withhold them out of spite. Or perhaps he really was just feeling so ill that he wasn't able to muster up the willpower. Damn elf.

All of this was his fault.

Galmar tried twice more to get the elf talking, more to keep himself awake than because he actually wanted to _listen_ to the bastard, and was met with stubborn silence. Even a well-placed shove failed to rouse the elf. Eventually, he gave up, slung an arm across the elf's chest, and gripped his left arm-- a precaution, that, against anything sneaky the elf tried like escaping-- and allowed his own eyes to close as well.

"For the record, elf, if you ever bring this up again when I am sober, duty or no duty, I will gut you like a fish."

There was a slight pause. Then:

"... I am sure Jarl Ulfric will rub it in enough for the both of us," came the cynical, if muffled, reply.

The worst thing, Galmar thought mustily, before sleep claimed him once more, was that the damned elf was probably right. Ulfric wasn't going to let him forget this until the day he died... and Galmar was probably being optimistic assuming that any of this would be forgotten even then.


	29. A Tossed Coin (Can Be Tossed Twice)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Tossed Coin (Can Be Tossed Twice)

Somewhere, in a warm bubble that lay between the realms of painful awakening and oblivion, Ondolemar drifted.

He felt many things, inside that bubble, but mostly what he felt was trapped. Literally trapped, because in a distant sort of way he recognised that Galmar's arm was clamping him in place, and metaphorically trapped, because when one was having difficulty stopping oneself from feeling fond of a Nord who despised mer as much and as openly as Galmar Stone-Fist did, one was in dire straights indeed.

Clearly, something needed to be done.

Either he needed to escape, or, if cornered, he needed to do something terrible enough to induce Ulfric Stormcloak to cut him loose and hang him from the battlements like the unfortunate Lord Naarifin had been hung from the White-Gold Tower following the disastrous Battle of the Red Ring. Thirty-three days of being hung up without food or water ought to kill this lingering fondness. A vague plan, but Ondolemar felt a bit happier having sorted something out. The details could wait.

Once he was back in his cell, he'd be right next to J'datharr.

Likely, J'datharr would have ideas too.

They'd die or they'd escape, both of them, and if it was the latter, he'd get back to the Embassy and put on proper robes again.

Once he was dressed like a Thalmor should be dressed, he'd also think like a Thalmor should think, too.

With this vague, optimistic thought, Ondolemar comforted himself, and drifted back into darkness.

\--O--

When Ondolemar woke next, he stood, curiously weightless, in a sunlit garden that smelt of comberry and peaches.

It was a beautiful garden, as gardens went.

He also didn't seem to have a headache, which meant that this was a dream.

For some reason, Galmar was standing next to him in this dream, which… odd, that was. Very odd. Ondolemar frowned at him, wondering why he was there at all, before being distracted by the fact that there was a table in the garden, at which two figures were sitting. One was a matronly woman, dark haired, clad in a fine blue robe. The other was an Altmer whose hand was frozen half way between his mouth and the table, holding a cup of something that smelled like tea. Both of them were looking accusingly, not at Ondolemar but at a huge, white dragon, which somehow, despite being a dragon, was still managing to look huffish.

“What in Oblivion…?” Galmar muttered.

Ondolemar ignored him in favor of sinking reverently to one knee, eyes downcast. He knew who these beings were. He'd knelt before the likenesses of Lady Mara and Lord Stendarr more times than he could count, and while he'd never knelt to the dragon, that didn't mean he didn't know who the dragon _was._

“Who are they?” Galmar said, hefting his great-axe, “What _is_ this, elf?”

"A time at which it behooves you, perhaps for the first time in your life, to be both respectful and _silent."_

“Silence be damned, elf. If you've touched Ulfric--,” Galmar broke off abruptly, taking a step towards the table, “Name yourselves, whoever you are, while I am still asking nicely. I warn you, if you have dragged me to this place for your own foul amusements, you can shove your plans up the steaming nether-reaches of your you-know-where's. I don't care how powerful your witchery is. If you think it and one undersized lizard are going to be enough to stop a true son of Skyrim from cleaving your skulls in two, you'll soon learn your mistake. I'll die before I become any elf or dragon's slave!”

Horror rose in Ondolemar with each disastrous word.

“Know that I disclaim all association with the Nord,” he said firmly, shuffling a foot or two away from the man.

“Noted,” the dragon said, nostrils smoking.

“Come now, my half-brother,” Lord Stendarr said, “Be reasonable. It isn't his fault, really, that he is upset. Talos and I were having a talk the other day,” Ondolemar choked slightly, before stilling, “about what a pity it was that so many Nords are frightened of magic these days, and mer in general. I'm sorry you're here at all actually, Galmar Stone-Fist,” he added, looking like he actually _meant_ it, “Why my half-brother chose to bring you--,”

“I don't see what the mystery is, little brother,” the dragon cut him off, sounding peeved, “You asked for them to be brought. I owed you a favor, so I brought them.”

“Did I?” Lord Stendarr said, frowning at Lady Mara.

“I think it is a little ungenerous of you to argue that, dear,” Lady Mara said to the dragon.

“I disagree. You asked me to take advantage of the fact that I and Auri-El used to be one, and bring the souls of this elf and the man nearest to his heart, temporarily, to your garden without our older brother noticing. I did exactly what you asked. The man was all but _squashing_ him.”

Galmar's throat worked, silently. Then:

"If you think I'm going to be cowed by some prissy elven gods--,"

"I don't," Lord Stendarr said, kindly. "For one thing, I don't make a habit cowing Nords. Cowing Kyne's children is not really in my portfolio, and even if it was, poor Talos is starving enough these days as it is without me stealing his faithful. Your bluster does you credit though. If he were here, he'd be very proud of you."

Ondolemar made a pained noise.

He rather thought Galmar might just have done the same.

Lord Stendarr turned back to the dragon, his tone assuming a rather sharper note.

“And anyone with an ounce of sense would have realised I meant _emotional_ closeness, not _physical_ closeness... though I suppose that I should not blame you too much. You have been stressed recently, what with the war.”

“A war which _my Empire_ is losing, largely because _neither_ _of_ _you_ seem to be helping as much as you ought to be.”

“That is hardly the only reason they're losing, brother,” Lord Stendarr defended himself, “And it is not as if I sit around all day doing nothing, just because I am sitting out the war. I am helping your Imperials with equally important things like rooting out the undead and the daedra, which really _ought_ to be more of a priority for you anyway. They do far more damage than any military skirmish. I mean, Cyrodiil's zombie infestations alone--,”

"You are failing signally to comfort me, little brother."

“… This isn't real,” Galmar muttered.

“Be careful, Galmar," Ondolemar warned him, beneath his breath, "Belief is a two-edged sword. Your disbelief may make this vision shatter, but do you think it will see your soul safely through Aetherius and back into your body?”

“… This is insane."

Ondolemar ignored that unhelpful observation.

“My Lord. My Lady,” Ondolemar started, respectfully.

"Yes, child?" Lady Mara said.

"Might I ask why it is you are honoring me with this vision?”

“You might,” Lord Stendarr said. “The timing is a bit off though. I'd _planned_  on injecting some pathos into you even before we broached the topic by starting things off in front of a human you actually _liked_. Still, it can't be helped. I'll be blunt, my distant nephew. I'd like it if you stopped thinking that all of us wanted men dead just because Auri-El _happens_ to at the moment. We don't.”

Ondolemar digested that.

Logically, he supposed, it made sense that the Lord of Mercy and the Lady of Love would not want men destroyed. But they, too, would stop regretting things when they stopped--

“Stop thinking like that,” Lord Stendarr said testily, pressing an index finger against his temple, “That is exactly the sort of thought I mean. It's not that I don't sympathise with your logic, Ondolemar-- I feel for you. I do. It's technically accurate, even if I don't like it, and it's the only way you have to justify my older brother telling you to behave like a Dremora just at present, but thoughts like that give me a _very_ bad headache.”

Ondolemar swallowed, feeling vaguely lost.

“I do not understand.”

"That's the problem," Lord Stendarr agreed. "The Altmer _used_ to understand things like that very well."

An unhelpful answer. Such oblique statements explained nothing at all.

"We're getting there," Lord Stendarr said. "It's just difficult to know where to start. But put simply, it occurred to us, a century or so ago, that Auri-El was...” he trailed off delicately.

“Going insane,” the dragon said, bluntly.

“That is putting the matter a bit too harshly,” Lord Stendarr protested, “Though I can sympathise with you for feeling that way. But regardless, it also occurred to us that the reason for it might be this.”

'This' turned out to be a fat, leather-bound volume roughly one foot square in size, which Lord Stendarr plucked seemingly from midair, and that Ondolemar very much hoped he would not be expected to--

“Read it,” Lord Stendarr said. "Not all of it, but the relevant parts. I've marked them."

There did indeed, now Ondolemar looked, appear to be some blue bits of paper protruding from various sections.

“What is it, My Lord?”

“A book detailing certain Divine principles. We gave the Aldmer a copy of it to keep in the Crystal-Like-Law a few years back, when it was first built, but this is the original.”

“… How did you get it?”

“I asked Xarxes for it.”

“And he gave it to you?” Ondolemar demanded.

“He is friends with Hermaeus Mora. A _most_ inappropriate friendship to be sure, but one can't but feel for him. It's hard not to be friends when you share such similar spheres of influence. He has yet to persuade my brother to invite the Prince to Aetherius, but it's not for lack of trying. He doesn't like the idea of Oblivion and Aetherius losing contact with each other any more than we do.”

Ondolemar felt a headache developing.

“Would you like some tea? I find it helps,” Lord Stendarr said, sympathetically.

“No. I would not.”

“If you change your mind...”

“I will let you know, Lord Stendarr.”

Lord Stendarr would probably know before Ondolemar told him anyway. He seemed to have a knack for reading thoughts. Ondolemar wondered if all of the Aedra here shared that talent.

“We do, dear,” Lady Mara said. “Though we can stop, if it is making you feel uncomfortable.”

“It is fine,” Ondolemar assured her.

He wasn't sure, actually, that he would have had the heart to outright refuse the motherly woman in front of him anything.

“She has that effect on most of us," Lord Stendarr agreed. "But anyway, where where we? Ah. Yes. The book. It is a very important book. Alas, when the Crystal-Like-Law shattered, the book was lost. I'd quite forgotten about it, actually, but it occurred to us the other day that maybe that was part of the reason poor Auri-El seems to have lost the plot recently.”

Ondolemar eyed the book with misgiving.

“If that is so, is it not something better returned to the Thalmor priesthood than to myself?”

“We've tried,” Lady Mara said, a shadow of sadness flickering across her face, “But it is difficult to speak with those who have so little room left in their hearts for mercy or for love. Their faith in what Is is tainted by their will for all that they do and do not wish to Be.”

“... I do not understand.”

Lord Stendarr took another sip of tea.

"That's what the book is for."

Ondolemar frowned down at it.

If the priests, who outranked him as much as he himself outranked a peasant in the natural order of things, were finding whatever this text was hard to comprehend, what chance had he? If empathy was the problem, he doubted he would be able to serve these Apologists of Men any better than his superiors. What shreds of that weakness remained in him--

“It's not a weakness at all,” Lord Stendarr said tartly. “It's disappointing that you see it that way.”

Ondolemar resisted the irrational urge to scuff his boot against the grass.

"We've been watching you. There have been some lapses, but on the whole, you've been very encouraging so far."

"... Why?"

"For one thing, you haven't yet killed yourself. We lost a few of the mer we approached before you that way. For another--,"

"Enough," Ondolemar said hastily, keenly aware that Galmar was hearing all of this, which meant that any weakness Lord Stendarr chose to share might well spread through the whole of Windhelm. "Very well. I will accept that I am encouraging to you, My Lord. But this cannot be Auri-El's will, if you are hiding it from him."

"... You aren't wrong," Lord Stendarr admitted. "For now, at least. That was the reason I wanted someone _useful_ like Elof here to prod you on by making you feel as terrible as you ought to feel about doing what Auri-El is telling you to do.”

A queer, sharp pain stabbed at him.

He did his best to conceal it.

“The boy is… that is, was he not one of yours?”

“He was, but he was not _only_ mine and for some reason he picked Sovngarde as his afterlife instead of my gardens. Even if Alduin was the sort of god who'd welcome me there, I can't just turn up uninvited and haphazardly steal another god's souls. It wouldn't be polite. The only way I'd get away with it would be if I happened to be the chief of a pantheon, or Alduin's father,” Lord Stendarr added, pointedly, to the dragon.

"You're-- ?" Galmar started, slowly.

The dragon glowered, ignoring him.

“Auri-El is going to suspect something is up soon. For my part, I think this whole idea is complete and utter rubbish, and I have nothing to say to him after the way he encouraged his Thalmor to usurp the credit from me and my Emperor for saving Tamriel during the Oblivion Crisis. Accept the book or do not; if he turns up before you've decided, I am leaving _without_ returning your souls to your bodies, and your stay will be more permanent than originally intended.”

Ondolemar digested that.

“Just take the damn thing so we can leave,” Galmar said, roughly. "I've a homeland to get back to, elf, so I can die in it and get to an afterlife _worth_ spending eternity in. I'll be damned if I'm dying in a flowerbed because you dithered too long over one moldering sheaf of papers."

Ondolemar glared at him resentfully.

Lady Mara spoke then, not aloud but in his mind.

_Elof remembers you fondly, child. The thought of you gives him courage, even as he wanders, lost, in the World-Eater's fog._

_Reading the words we want you to see will not compel you to believe them, but do you not wish, in your heart, that my Lord Auri-El did not desire so cruel an end for all mankind? In your deepest heart, do you not wish that you were wrong?_

This was… this was not fair. This was the basest manipulation. This was--

It hurt.

All of it hurt.

What clear path forward was there, when he'd slain teacher and friend alike for feeling the same doubts that assailed him now?

"I feel for you," Lord Stendarr said, then. "I truly do. I'll try to summarise my view on things though. You were an only child, as I recall. Your father's estate thus passed entirely to you when he died. But if your father had seen fit to adopt a second child, one night-- the orphan of an enemy slain in honorable battle whom your father had reluctantly respected-- do you think that deciding to kill your foster-brother because your inheritance had just been halved and you didn't think he deserved it would be a mature way to tackle the situation?"

Ondolemar digested that.

There was a certain sort of logic to it.

There were certainly obvious parallels.

"And of course," Lord Stendarr added, "The idea that just because you've made a mistake, you need to keep on repeating it just so that you don't have to  _admit_ that you've made a mistake is ridiculous. Imagine how confused you'd be if you went through life telling yourself that one plus one equaled three just because you didn't want to face the fact that you'd made a mistake in one of your equations when you were ten."

A gross oversimplification.

Getting an equation wrong was  _not_ the same as killing other mer.

And yet--

And yet.

“… I am incapable of reading all of that before Auri-El comes.”  _Even were I willing to defy him._

“You won't need to read it all now," Lord Stendarr assured him. "Xarxes has a chamber for you to read in that he tells me is a closely guarded secret. The book will be there. To get to it, all you have to do is ask him at some point when it's not to too inconvenient for you not to be inside your body to ask him to take you there. Surely,” Lord Stendarr added persuasively, face shifting in a way that made him and Lady Mara look suddenly very alike, “Surely, my distant nephew, reading would be a welcome relief from the boredom of Windhelm's jails. Much healthier for you than becoming an alcoholic, which at present seems a very real danger.”

Ondolemar colored slightly.

"It is not _my_ fault that Nords keep rendering me drunk."

Lord Stendarr arched an eyebrow at him.

"...It's  _mostly_ not."

Lord Stendarr took another sip of tea.

“... I would not lose my soul?” Ondolemar said, at last.

“Auri-El accepts Thalmor and dissidents both,” Lady Mara assured him, “He has ever been a fond father, to the point of blindness. Not unlike a certain someone, who will not make the smallest effort to stop his son from breakfasting daily on the souls of innocents crying out for mercy," pointed, that last bit, but the dragon, busy preening its wings, did not appear to hear her. She looked back to Ondolemar. "But even were he not, I would accept your soul. You would not be left to wander lost.”

“… My father would not be disappointed in me?”

Lady Mara and Lord Stendarr exchanged a glance.

“If he blames you, I will tell him it was all my fault,” Lord Stendarr promised. “I think he will be very happy with you, actually. Eventually. And hopefully, by the time he notices what we're up to, you'll have read enough of that book to make him think twice about having you assassinated.”

That was not a comforting thought.

On the other hand...

_They are your Aedra._

_They are Auri-El's family, as you are._

It wasn't as if either of them were Daedra.

Was it not worth reaching for this tiny, tiny chance, if only to prove to himself that it did not exist? 

Treason or no, what harm could there be in just passing his gaze across a handful of words?

It was not as if he actually needed to _do_ anything with the knowledge. If it was treason or heresy, he could just… do his best to forget it, never tell anyone else, not act on it, and let the knowledge die with him when Ulfric Stormcloak cut his head off.

_In your deepest heart, do you not wish that you were wrong?_

“… I will accept it," Ondolemar said, at last. "If only as a relief from boredom. I make no promises, however, that it will convince me or even that I will understand it at all. There was a reason I failed magical theory three decades running. I do not presume to advise you, my ancestors, but I hope you will find a replacement for me as soon as you are able. Intuition tells me you will need one.”

“Duly noted,” Lord Stendarr said, and Ondolemar wasn't sure when the mer had moved, but suddenly he was patting Ondolemar on the shoulder. “Duly noted. Thank you, by the way. And sorry, if you do get killed.”

“I'm not sure, my distant uncle, that I believe you.”

Lord Stendarr grinned, suddenly looking absurdly youthful, and clapped him on the shoulder again.

“Don't worry. If you are murdered, I'll visit you and let you complain at me for as long as you want to.”

With that not very comforting assurance, the god stepped away again, and exchanged a look with the dragon.

“What…?” Galmar started.

The dragon opened its mouth and pure, white-hot flame enveloped both of them--

\-- And Ondolemar was lying in bed, heart pounding, staring at the ceiling of Ulfric Stormcloak's unfairly luxurious chambers, being crushed beneath Galmar Stone-Fist's arm and feeling like he'd both swallowed a bottle of nightshade and had spent the last six hours scratching slaughterfish scales against his eyelids.

Abruptly, he wrenched himself free and sat up.

“Tell me,” Galmar said, still prone, “That I wasn't just roasted to a cinder by Akatosh.”

“You were not just roasted to a cinder by Akatosh. Happy?”

“No. Do your gods visit you _every time_ you get drunk?”

Ondolemar chose not to dignify that with a reply.

“... Remind me, elf,” Galmar groaned, “never, ever to enter a drinking contest with you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is cheating. Auri-El does not approve.


	30. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Waiting

The walk back down to the dungeon was not a pleasant one, but Ondolemar endured it stoically.

When one had just learned that two of one's unexpectedly-informal Pantheon were on speaking terms with the false-god Talos and seemed to think that one's favorite Aedra was more than a little insane, the affront involved in taking off Ulfric Stormcloak's spare furs, donning prison rags, and being marched back to one's very cold prison cell was so trivial as to be non-existent.

It was a pity, Ondolemar thought, as he walked, that Nords were not more cruel to their enemies.

Had Ulfric Stormcloak treated prisoners more like Elenwen did… had he but behaved more like Ysgramor, whom he really _ought_ to have been emulating given that he claimed to hold the man up as role-model… had he been like the Empire, even…

Alas for reality.

Reality, which had cursed Ondolemar with his current inability to despise the collective races of men.

Reality, which insisted on thrusting a bubble of  _something_ inside his chest that felt suspiciously like  _hope_.

Reality, which said that Ondolemar really ought to be submitting himself to reeducation.

Reality, which said that instead of taking that intimidating but thoroughly sensible course, Ondolemar was going to instead read through an ancient tome that was probably written in the most archaic form of ancient Aldmeri known to mer, and endure, for as long as it took him to get through the wretched thing, having his soul wrenched in and out of him on a regular basis _hoping_ that Lord Stendarr and Lady Mara, whose fault all of this was, saw to it that nothing happened to his body in the meantime while he wasn't in it to take care of it.

Oh well. At least if anything _did_ happen, his soul would be in Aetherius already.

If any more vampires infected his body, he could always ask Xarxes to do him a favor and _not_ send him back inside it. Admittedly, Ondolemar did not know much of Xarxes beyond the fact that he was the god of secret knowledge and of ancestry, was Auri-El's scribe and was friends with Hermaeus Mora, but Ondolemar doubted there would be any real problem with the request. Yes, he was an abysmal scholar but he was pursuing secret knowledge _now,_ and his bloodline was impeccable. Xarxes ought to be fond of him.

A pause, in these ponderings. The barracks approached.

“Sleep well?” a Nord said, innocently, as he passed.

There were a few muffled snickers at this from the men gathered nearest to him. Ondolemar paused, narrowing his eyes.

“Keep moving, elf,” his escort said.

Ondolemar did not oblige.

“Have you a reason for thinking I slept any differently to the norm, Nord?”

“Nope. No reason, elf,” the Nord said, with a dangerous gleam in his eyes and-- ah.

Now Ondolemar remembered him. Remembered him being stationed outside his door, and remembered telling him to get out of the way, arm-in-arm with Galmar, and it really was… embarrassing, that one's drunken lapses were circulating the whole palace. On the other hand, however, if there had been a witness, maybe Ondolemar would get more than a headache out of his bet after all. And so, instead of promising vengeance on the man for ten generations, Ondolemar smiled faintly and arched an eyebrow.

“Tell me, Nord, since it seems you were there: Who drunk who beneath the table? Myself, or the so-valiant commander?”

“I said keep moving,” his escort said again.

“C'mon, Lharyd,” another Nord said, protesting. “What's the rush?”

“The _rush_ is I've been standing outside manning the gates in a blizzard for the whole Talos-forsaken night, my left knee feels like someone's grinding it with a pestle, and I don't get to get off-duty or sleep until this snake's safely locked up inside his cell. If you're that anxious to chat up the goldskin, chat him up down _there._ Now move it, elf, and stop lollygagging.”

The words were accompanied by a brisk shove.

 _Move, or you will be moved,_ was the silent promise.

Ondolemar moved only because it would be undignified to be wrestled back into his cell by a cold, arthritic Nord.

“I expect an answer, Nord,” he tossed over his shoulder, when the wretched man remained silent, “Sooner, rather than later. I have a bet with your commander riding on it that I am very much looking forward to collecting on. And if you are thinking of lying, do not. I assure you, I _will_ know. And so, unless I misjudge him, will he.”

There was no answer.

He was led to his cell. Entered it. It was just as cold and dull as he remembered it being. The pile of straw was as rank as usual; the spiderweb in the top-left corner of his cell remained empty of aught but the spider and dust. His abandoned blanket sat forlornly in the corner. Quaint, how familiar he had become with this frozen little cube, that such things were signs of normality. The door was locked behind him.

“You recovered well from your... indisposition, I see,” J'datharr said, once the guard had left.

“It should not surprise you. I have survived Elenwen's parties and Markarth's furniture for six years. One beating is _hardly_ enough to finish me.”

J'datharr snorted.

Had this been yesterday, Ondolemar would have followed that up by asking J'datharr how he felt about crawling through the bars, removing his restraints, and making a run for it. This was today, however, and so Ondolemar said, lightly, sinking down and settling himself against the wall:

“I don't see Malborn anywhere. Don't tell me you've already killed him?”

“I haven't,” J'datharr said, sounding peeved, and Ondolemar felt a tiny, very unprofessional ripple of relief wash through him, “I don't know what strings that blubbering skeever pulled, but he was gone when I got back to my cell. The rat's probably half-way to Morrowind by now if he's not been eaten, though he probably has been. I've never hunted a less capable target.”

Ondolemar tsked sympathetically.

“… Do you intend to track him?”

“To the border,” J'datharr replied, “If he crosses it, the Thalmor can find a new agent to hunt him down if they still care about him. The dark elves can say what they like about slavery _officially_ being a thing of the past. Every Khajiit knows that those of us who cross into those lands without owners have a way of acquiring them if we stick around too long and forget to watch our backs.”

Ondolemar tsked sympathetically again.

“Barbaric, the Dunmer. A disgrace to the good name of mer everywhere.”

J'datharr grunted in agreement, with feeling.

More silence.

Night, Ondolemar decided, was the obvious time to ask Xarxes to take him to the book.

J'datharr was good with his reports.

Ondolemar had no idea if there were any side-effects when one's soul was taken off to read forbidden lore, but if there were, J'datharr would probably describe them perfectly and Elenwen, who had files on everything, would almost certainly recognise them.

There was no point in hiding things from Auri-El if one was going to be careless in front of the First Emissary.

Her assassins would be far swifter in coming than his distant ancestor's.

“You planning on running again, Justiciar?”

“Not until I am able to come up with a better plan than 'flee blindly and hope I am not eaten by anything before I get to Solitude.' You were in a fairly good position, I think, to observe how well that worked for me last time, even _with_ supplies. In this outfit? I wouldn't last a day.”

J'datharr made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

Ondolemar glared at the wall.

“My suffering is _not_ a cause for mirth.”

J'datharr just snorted again. Wretched cat.

Ondolemar sighed, deeply.

“What ails you, Justiciar?”

“Boredom. Boredom, and the remnants of a very painful hangover. Endure me. My spirits will undoubtedly improve at some point before you are freed. Which will be…?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

“Think of me, Justiciar. While you are sitting safe and bored and drinking wine--,”

“Mead.”

“ _Mead_ with the officers, then, I will be trekking through thigh-deep snow in sodden clothing, trying to track footsteps that will probably have been buried already by fresh snow-falls, hoping no melting ice is leaking into my moon-sugar and praying to Alkosh that no dragon or troll spots me and decides to make me their next meal. All for a lousy thousand gold pieces.”

“… You have my sympathy,” Ondolemar said, shuddering. “Such an ungenerous stipend--”

“Exactly. If it wasn't for the fact that the Brotherhood doesn't pay even _half_ of that pitiful sum for their kills, I'd have quit and joined them years ago.”

“I neither know, nor wish to know, how you know that.”

J'datharr, obligingly, did not tell him.

Silence descended once more.

Ondolemar found himself wondering if he ought to name the spider if they were going to be cellmates for as long as it took for him to finish Lord Stendarr's heretical book, and decided against it. He was not that desperate. Not yet.

Eight hours, perhaps, until nightfall. Ondolemar could deal with eight hours.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the wall behind him and waited.

\--O--

Ulfric could make neither head nor tail of Galmar's dream, when he set the bare bones of it before him.

His first instinct was to dismiss it as a product of too much mead.

"It wasn't," Galmar said. "Or if it was, the elf had the exact same dream."

Alright then. If it was real, then Ulfric's first instinct was to resent such interference.

The Nords needed no help from any elven-sympathisers to end the threat of the Thalmor. Moreover, if three of the Nine cared enough about the Thalmor to _do_ something about them, why hadn't they stepped in _centuries_ ago? Talos knew the Thalmor had been around since before the Oblivion Crisis. Their atrocities had been too perfect during the Great War not to have been perfected on other unfortunates ten times over in the years preceding it

Why now? Why that elf? Why a  _book_ of all things?

And finally, what did it mean that his prisoner had accepted their request?

“It means we lose,” Galmar said, running his hand along the edge of his axe. “You do the math. His mind's apparently going to be jaunting off whenever he wants it to, leaving us with a lump of flesh not much better than a corpse to waste our time trying to extract information from, just so he can work out if this 'Auri-El' of his actually enjoys being a genocidal maniac or not. Who cares is what I say. A man should obey his conscience first and pick a god to worship second who agrees with it.”

Good, sound common-sense.

Ulfric grunted his agreement to it.

“So what do we do, Ulfric?” Galmar said then.

That was the question, wasn't it? The question was, was the fact that the prisoner was apparently willing to look-- had looked, Ulfric corrected himself, twice now-- for the excuse he seemed to think he needed to stop trying to destroy every Nord in Tamriel, enough of a justification to keep on housing, feeding, and, if his government sent assassins, probably also protecting the elf?

It was a difficult question.

It hinged on if the elf did use it to avoid being questioned.

It hinged, too, on if the elf decided for or against the Thalmor in the end.

Ulfric was, unfortunately, not gifted with foresight.

“… We will change nothing,” Ulfric said, at last.

“Are you sure?” Galmar frowned. “It'd be a waste to kill him having let him live this long I grant you, but I'll be damned before I'll become a thread in any elf-god's tapestry.”

“My father once told me this, when he visited High Hrothgar: Trifle not with gods, for they do not hesitate to trifle back. Though they sympathise with elves, they are three of the Eight and the One. They stand with Talos, even if the Empire will not. That I do not understand their actions does not mean there is no sense to be had in them. If they seek to turn the elf against his government with a book, I will not kill our prisoner lightly just to spite them.”

A slight pause. A searching look. Then:

“… Do you want the elf on our side?"

Did he, Ulfric wondered?

"The elf is as stubborn as a Nord. I doubt he would ever willingly bend his knee to any man... and nor would I trust him if he did."

Galmar grunted, and let the matter drop.

\--O--

Dinner came. Night came. J'datharr snored.

And safe at last, Ondolemar asked Xarxes to take him to Lord Stendarr's heretical book.

There was a moment of nothing, where he wondered if there was some special ritual he was supposed to know about and undertake before a divine scribe was allowed to haphazardly pluck out one's soul and deposit it in front of a moldering tome.

Then there was a sudden, sickening pull, and abruptly, everything went white. 


	31. A Lesson in History (Bookmarks 1-3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
>  **WARNINGS** : Subjective treatment/casual butchering of Tamrielic History.

## A Lesson in History (Bookmarks 1-3)

When the white light cleared, Ondolemar-- or, more accurately, Ondolemar's disembodied soul-- stood in a pleasant, warm, crystalline chamber lit by four glowing orbs. A chair and a desk stood in the center of the room, the latter of which had Lord Stendarr's book on top of it, and also a steaming mug of something which Ondolemar strongly suspected was Lord Stendarr's tea.

There was no exit that he could see, and nor did there appear to be anyone else present.

There were to be no distractions then, it seemed, which was probably fair enough. He was here for one purpose, and one purpose alone. Best, then, to get on with it. Gingerly, Ondolemar approached the desk, and sat. No flames immediately rose up to incinerate him when he touched the book's cover, which was good. With more confidence, he opened the thing... and decided, running his eyes down the first page Lord Stendarr had bookmarked, that whoever had written it ought to have been flogged.

Not only had the inconsiderate author chosen to use Ehlnofex, a language so archaic that Ondolemar barely recognised, much less _understood_ the wretched thing, they'd also, apparently, decided to cross their lines and write in the smallest, most cramped cursive it had ever been his misfortune to try to decipher. There was no need, surely, for that. Paper was not hard to come by. Not on Mundus, where trees were common as dust. There ought not to have been a  _need_ to be stingy with it.

They were probably a Bosmer.

Ondolemar felt a headache building, and fortified himself with a mouthful of tea, which-- it was extraordinary, actually, how quickly the pain in his throbbing temple was subsiding. Ondolemar eyed the stuff, reluctantly impressed. It was no wonder Lord Stendarr swore by the brew. He took another sip, and found himself wondering if the ingredients for it existed anywhere outside Aetherius, and if not, if this mug was bespelled to be self-replenishing as well as self-heating.

Useless thoughts, all of them.

He redirected his attention to the more pertinent problem of the voluminous tome.

Intimidating, that evil book, but it would not defeat him.

Ondolemar might have beaten a strategic retreat had he been facing an onslaught of twenty such books, or had he been expected to remember this word-for-word, but _one_ book-- one book, moreover, of which he needed to read no more than twenty pre-marked pages-- was _not_ going to rout him, no matter what language it was written in.

"My Lord Xarxes," he said respectfully, to the ceiling, "Might I trouble you for a journal, something to write with, a book of Ehlnofex-to-Aldmeri translations, and a _very good_  magnifying glass?"

It turned out that Ondolemar could.

It also turned out, what felt like hours later and might even have been whole days, that souls were not immune to cramped fingers and itchy eyes. Disappointing. Still, that was what getting up and stretching was for, and at least he was getting _somewhere_ with the thing, even if the book was, as expected, the basest heresy.

It was not all so, of course. The bare bones of the tale-- for Lord Stendarr's first bookmark appeared to be a tale of Lorkhan's death-- was consistent with the little Ondolemar knew of history. The Aedroth had been tricked into creating Nirn by Lorkhan, Lorkhan and his men had tried to exterminate the mer, Trinimac had ripped out Lorkhan's heart, and Auri-El had shot it into the sea. Then the Aedroth who still could had left for Aetherius, leaving the Aldmeri behind. That much, at least, seemed familiar.

But the book then went on to add facts Ondolemar did not recognise at all to that tale.

When Auri-El held Lorkhan's heart, the tale said, he mourned his friend.

When Auri-El held Lorkhan's heart, said this heretical work, Auri-El percieved much of Lorkhan's Will, for once they had been bonded-brothers.

Since when had Lorkhan, who wasn't even of Anuic origin, been Auri-El's brother?

The very thought was ridiculous.

 _Is it?_ his mind whispered, unhelpfully.  _Did you ever pay any attention to the lessons on the eras before time?_

_What do you know of history?_

Ondolemar gritted his teeth, sat back down, and forced himself to keep working.

Turned to bookmark two. Three.

The heresy continued.

_When Auri-El held Lorkhan's heart, Auri-El understood, as he had not understood up until then, the terrible Limits to which Lorkhan had constrained the Aedroth in the shaping of Nirn. And these were fear, death, faith, time and memory. Such was the strength of the faith and fear of Lorkhan's children, Lorkhan's Will had been undone. No more did Lorkhan remember the Aedroth as his brothers. Lorkhan feared defeat, and he feared death. But more even than his death, Lorkhan feared the enslavement of his children to the pitiless will of Order, without Choice-- for some among the Aedroth, whom Lorkhan had slain, had sought to subvert the faith of Lorkhan's sons and daughters, in order that they might prevent their own deaths. And his children had suffered._

_And Auri-El understood, then, his brother's treachery, at least in part, and pitied him._

_When Lorkhan's heart felt Auri-El's hesitation, it laughed, fey and defiant._

_"This Heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other. Destroy it, and all our works will crumble. You hate me," for Lorkhan's heart believed this to be true, though it was not, "but in ending me, you will end all of our Creation. Do you have that power? Do you have that Will?"_

_Auri-El saw that Lorkhan's heart spoke truly._

_And so, Auri-El, who is Time, halted the sun in the sky and convened with his brothers and sisters in Thought._

_Stendarr spoke first, Apologist of Man._

_"See, my Lord, how his children weep for him. Though they were formed from nothing, witness their loyalty and their love for their creator. Witness, too, their pain and their terror at the fate they fear awaits them. I know not by what design they were made, but it is clear to me that they are separate beings, as real as our own children, not mere puppets or extensions of Lorkhan's Will. The desire is in them to live. For that desire alone, I would spare them, and spare Lorkhan's heart also."_

_"That, I already know," Auri-El said._

_Mara spoke then, who is Love._

_"I plead for mercy also. Lorkhan was wrong to hide from us the extent to which we would spend our power on Creation, but have we only lost? Where those who stood back from this Creation have unstable, ever-fluid realms of like-minded slaves who obey them without choice, do we not have some measure of order, and free-willed children who love us? My heart was cold, in the age before time. Now, my love for my children warms it. For that, at least, I am grateful to our fallen brother."_

_"I am not grateful," said Trinimac, the greatest of Auri-El's knights. "Too many of my brothers are faded. Too many of my sisters have been slain. His creations started this slaughter, and their fear of those of us who sought to guide them with our greater knowledge twisted our brother into the monster leading them in their carnage. The Elder Woods are lost to us. None there were spared, mer, Ehlnofey or Aedroth. Only through Anu's gift of his bow and his shield were we able to triumph, and defend our children on this tiny speck of land. Why should we not crush that heart? Why should we not crush his children beneath our heel, as they sought to crush us?"_

_"Because we aren't tainted et'Ada yet," Stendarr said, "We are not constrained to return evil for evil, nor show mercy only when it has been earned. We have not yet sunk that low. At least, I have not."_

_Things threatened to get heated, but Auri-El called for calm, and Trinimac and Stendarr subsided._

_Next spoke Magnus, from Aetherius, through Syrabane and Phynaster._

_"It must be ended. Those who must die, will die. But Mundus was a mistake. As its architect, I know this truth; that only I escaped, and am not subject to the Limitations. You, who are, are caught in the cycle of faith, which has the power to bend your Will even as it feeds you. This must be undone. Only then will true power and freedom return to you."_

_"I disagree," Jephre said, who is Earth's Bones, "The Limitations are not to be feared. They are the natural consequence of free will, as death is the natural consequence of life. Like Mara, our sister, I would rule more than slaves, even at the cost of my Being. You know I speak truly. Have I not made of myself an Ehlnofey, and tied myself to this plane? I have become the bones of the earth, granting it stability, and already, many of my children have tied themselves as I have by taking mannish wives. Think, my Lord, of the children who will not be, if we shatter Creation. Think of those who will be lost."_

_"Let us speak practically," Xen said, who loves peace and honest labor, "If we destroy Lorkhan's heart, we will have to drag ourselves back to Anu, poor and shamefaced, who has already replaced us with new sons. And if he has no use for us and none exist here to believe in us, we will fade. But if Nirn binds us, our Will will be enslaved, as Lorkhan's was-- if indeed our Will is not already so constrained. All choices seem ill to me, therefore, and have since the creation of the world. I will listen to your wisdom. I will stand with you if you stand with the world, and I will stand with you if all that is must be undone."_

_Xarxes said nothing, for his role was to observe and to record._

_Deeply, did Auri-El consider their advice._

_Magnus' logic was most true, but Auri-El held Lorkhan's heart, and was moved to mercy._

_Time resumed. Instead of crushing Lorkhan's heart, he fastened it to an arrow and shot it into the sea, where none would find it for long years._

_There, it stabilised the world._

_This was Lorkhan's gift to Auri-El, that the Aedroth might leave Nirn and be free from the limitations of fear and death, for in that debate, his heart, too, had glimpsed Auri-El's mind, and had seen that Auri-El recognized men as his children, not merely as lowly spirits or constructs to be destroyed and controlled. And free in Thought from the faith of men or the limits of Time, Lorkhan's heart had softened. Then were Auri-El and Lorkhan reconciled, at least in part. And Auri-El, sensing the Limitations of the mortal plane growing in his own mind, ascended to Aetherius shortly after with many others, there to create a realm for the housing of his children's souls._

_But men did not understand, and they bore off Lorkhan's body, weeping, swearing vengeance. And Magnus and Trinimac, too, were unhappy with Auri-El's choice._

_But Stendarr, Mara and Jephre rejoiced._

_In time, Auri-El instructed the Aldmeri in the art of building Towers, by which the ties between Aetherius and Nirn might be strengthened, and magic flow more easily to comfort the faithful left behind. And the instructions Auri-El left to you, his children, are these:_

_Be wary, for the Limitations of the Mortal Plane affect its creators as they do not the Daedra, who did not create._

_Doubt not the power of the Aedroth, for doubt is poison to us._

_But those of you who do not doubt, do not abuse the power we have given you. By your faith do the Aedroth live, for faith is our food and our wine. By the mercy of Auri-El does Nirn live on also, in turn, and the light exist that guides your souls to Aetherius instead of Oblivion. Tip not the balance. Auri-El is a kindly god, but there are limits to his patience. Suffer not those dissidents to live among you, who would grieve our Lord by offering themselves to tainted spirits. Suffer not those who, by evil design, would force their father to bend, as Lorkhan's children forced Lorkhan to bend long ago, to their Will of what Should Be._

_Educate those who can be educated._

_Reason with those who will listen._

_Exile those who will not._

_Execute those whom you must._

_But remember, always, that they are your brothers, and despise them not, for such frailties are the consequences of the Limitations of Nirn. Even the greatest of the Divine are not immune; and so Trinimac fell into Oblivion. Devote yourselves to knowledge, lest these truths be forgotten._

_Auri-El, our lord, weeps for each child who is lost._

_(An account written in the Dawn Era by Xarxes, Scribe of Auri-El who is the Prince of Light, and the Soul of the Soul of Anu.)_


	32. A Bargain is Struck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## A Bargain is Struck

The prisoner had been unconscious for two days, so far.

Ulfric had not expected that. He was not sure what he _had_ expected, his experience of the Divines snatching one's soul from one's body being limited, but in a vague sort of way, he'd imagined the nature of the elf's… illness, for lack of a more technical term for it, would be many absences of short duration, timed carefully by the Thalmor to inconvenience Ulfric as much as possible.

Instead, the elf was just propped against the wall in a crumpled bundle, lifeless and curiously small.

His pulse beat, but sluggishly, and his flesh was ice-cold.

Ulfric did not miss the elf's barbs, but seeing him like this… it bothered him.

And so, because he was a Jarl and the leader of a rebellion who took his jobs seriously, and had more pressing matters to be bothered by than a sickly Thalmor, Ulfric gave orders to his men to report to him once the elf woke up again, avoided visiting the dungeons, and sat on his throne listening to Tova Shatter-Shield complain about being robbed (Ulfric sympathised, but he could do nothing for her, since the robber she claimed was responsible had, apparently, fled to the Reach), Ambarys Rendar complain again about being taxed (he ought to make a law that the dark elves were not allowed to petition him directly), and tried to work out, analyzing the reports from his spies, if Tullius was likely to get the support he seemed to be asking for from High Rock.

Still, in the end, it did not matter if he did. The Nords were no weaklings.

If Ulfric could drive out the Empire, he could drive out a few frail Bretons. If Skyrim wasn't strong enough to stand alone when she needed to, she'd never be able to stand at all.

\--O--

Had it been a dead Bosmer who'd written the unorthodox drivel Ondolemar had suffered Auri-El knew how long-- though he hopefully didn't-- translating, Ondolemar would have dismissed the thing as the product of an overly romantic imagination, coupled with an extremely overblown sense of pride on the part of an author who could not deal with the fact that his gods were infinitely more powerful than him, did not, in fact, need him at all, and helped their descendants because they were their descendants, not because they had to.

The idea that without faith, Auri-El would starve was laughable.

The idea that the belief of mortals could shape the will of the immortal was frankly pathetic.

It was Lord Xarxes who'd written it, however, which made dismissing it difficult.

Not, however, impossible. After all, it was possible that too much time in Hermaeus Mora's company had addled the Aedra. Spending time with the Daedric princes was illegal after all, and making errors when one transcribed things like Auri-El's thoughts and the Convention was probably just one of the many good reasons _why_ it was.

Yes, Auri-El might abandon Nirn in disgust if all his children died or turned from him and he might not accept _new_ souls, but surely every soul who'd crossed over to Aetherius to join him _continued_ to believe in him? Surely their faith was not worthless just because they were dead?

No. He could see why Lord Stendarr seemed to like this book, since it painted Auri-El and Lorkhan as Aedra who did not despise each other or hate each other's children-- the logical jump was probably supposed to be that if Auri-El hadn't hated men then, he didn't now, and it was the Thalmor who'd forced him to by believing he did-- but that was, utterly and completely, ridiculous. No god-ancestor of Ondolemar's was so frail that he did not know full well what he wanted and how to stick to it in the face of a brood of children who didn't agree with him. He _certainly_ wouldn't have sent Ondolemar visions of Ulfric turning him into a Falmer if he'd wanted them to be friends.

If the rest of the book was going to be as trite as this had been, was there even a _point_ finishing it?

“You know,” a voice said, deep and friendly, which resounded about the room from everywhere and nowhere all at once, “You would do rather better, my distant nephew, if you spent more time thinking about and doing the job my brother set you-- not, I think we can both agree, an impossible one, even for so lacking a student as yourself-- and less time pondering whether or not I am sane.”

Ondolemar stiffened, flushing slightly.

He wasn't alone?

“My Lord--,”

“You may call me 'Xarxes', nephew. I see no need for such obeisance, when you have done your best to avoid the only part of my sphere of influence you had any choice about for the entirety of your existence.”

“My L-- Xarxes,” he corrected himself, “I do not mean to show any disrespect, but--,”

“But I deserve to be flogged and might be insane because I happen to enjoy the company of my half-brother,” the voice said, pleasantly.

Ondolemar resisted the urge to tug at his collar.

Souls did not need to breathe, he reminded himself; thus, their collars could not feel too tight.

“I do not understand, that is all. I do not understand why you keep making nouns proper nouns without explaining them, I do not understand how Auri-El and Lorkhan could have been friends, given what the Numidium did to Alinor and the way the Falmer and the Ayleids treated men, and I do not understand why I am wasting my time trying to translate that _thing_ when you, who wrote it, have the time to talk with me. Can you not simply _tell me_ what it is Lord Stendarr hopes I will get out of the wre-- the book?”

“I could, but I won't.”

Ondolemar's disposition dropped several notches.

“Why not?”

“Because I see not the smallest reason to do so. You are lazy, and have always been. It is good for your character not to be able to get every answer you want without studying for it. Stendarr has cheated enough by marking out sections for you as it is.”

Ondolemar glared at the ceiling.

“The ceiling does not deserve your ire, nephew. I am simply choosing not to assume a corporeal form just at present because when assuming a corporeal form, I am, inevitably, bound to assume the form my faithful _believe_ I like assuming, which was carved into their temple walls back in the days when I still thought being a biped with only two arms was a good idea.”

“… Why would that not be a good idea?” Ondolemar said, grudgingly curious.

“You try being assigned the job of transcribing the history of every single mer who believes in Auri-El, as well as the decisions and logic of every god in this pantheon, and see whether _you_ still think two arms is a good idea. I miss more than half of what happens, even when I _do_ assign every soul who picks the Library of the Sun as their afterlife to the job of helping me finish the rotten task. My half-brother's idea of existing as a mass of tentacles is _much_ more practical. With ten thousand tentacles to write with, I might have as much free time to meddle in Nirn's affairs as Stendarr seems to.”

Ondolemar pitied, deeply, any mer foolish enough to pick Xarxes library as their afterlife.

The orbs of light flickered almost… peevishly.

“... What if,” Ondolemar began persuasively, after a short pause, “I promised, my uncle, to _believe_ you capable of existing as a mass of ten thousand tentacles, when you wanted to? Then would you save me time and tell me just what it is Lord Stendarr wants me to learn from this heret-- this _unorthodox_ manuscript?”

There was a slight pause.

Had souls needed to do things like breathe, Ondolemar might have held his breath in anticipation.

“… I suppose,” Xarxes said at last, sounding resigned, “Your character isn't _really_ my problem, and you are probably too far gone to do anything about anyway at your age, even if it was. Alright, nephew. We have an agreement. Let me have a look at the noble Stendarr's lamentably unimaginative bookmarks and see what is it, exactly, that I need to explain to you.”


	33. In Which Ondolemar Proposes a Truce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## In Which Ondolemar Proposes a Truce

On day four, an hour before noon and in the middle of a training drill that Ulfric was still working on convincing his Stormcloaks deserved epithets like ' _standard_ ,' and ' _basic_ ' not ' _Talos-cursed waste of a morning'_ and _'a sign that the Jarl has too much time on his hands,_ ' Cahlad brought word that the Thalmor had, at long last, decided to stir.

“You should go to him, sir,” Torak, a young Nord who Ulfric seemed to remember expressing a hope to one day become a battlefield healer, panted between push-ups. “It'd be a shame if he dropped off again before you got to interrogate him. That'd be… um, really bad.”

“It would, would it?” Ulfric said, dryly.

Torak, immune to dryness, it seemed, nodded gravely.

The Stormcloak next to him, a more seasoned veteran, paused in his own exertions long enough to elbow him in the side. Torak ignored that, too. A young lad, Torak, Ulfric reminded himself. Too young to hate the elves as he ought to, and not yet old enough to realise that avoiding these training exercises wasn't going to make him any more likely to live through a battle with the beasts of Skyrim, the elves or the Empire. And if he imagined that Ulfric did not see straight through this extremely unsubtle ploy, he was wrong.

“You aren't…?” Torak said, after a half a minute had passed.

"I am not. You may resume your duties."

"... You're absolutely sure--,"

“Do you know what the most important thing is for a soldier on any battlefield?”

“… Strength?”

“Obeying the orders of one's commanding officers, Torak.”

Torak heaved a sigh, and got back down on the snow.

Once day, Ulfric promised himself, he would have the freedom to say no to boys like Torak. One day, he would have so many men standing for Skyrim and for Talos that his cause would survive Ulfric saying that the volunteers he allowed to fight for him needed to be men old enough to understand death and what they were dying for. Talos willing, that day would come soon. The Dragonborn was good at killing dragons. Even Alduin ought not to be able to last more than one month against one who was armed with an Elder Scroll.

Skyrim would soon be whole again.

 _And what next?_ a cold voice whispered, then.  _When the Empire and the Thalmor are gone, what next?_

\--O--

“I was wondering how long it would be before you deigned to grace me with your company.”

It was evening. Late evening, because Ulfric had a point to prove to his men, and perhaps also to prove to himself. The elf looked exactly how someone who'd not slept, eaten or drunk in four days might have been expected to look, and was pacing restlessly in a way that reminded Ulfric of a caged wolf. His dinner remained on the ground, untouched.

Had he not liked whatever it was that the Nine had wanted him to see?

“I had hoped it would not be too long before you did,” the elf continued, when Ulfric said nothing.

“You found the time to miss me, did you, in Aetherius?”

A pause, in the elf's pacing, as if he'd just miscalculated a step.

“Galmar told me about your shared dream,” Ulfric said, bluntly, seating himself on his stool.

The elf resumed his pacing.

“And you believed him, did you?”

“I did. The Nine are difficult to mistake, no matter how long it has been since either of us last entered the Temple of the Nine, or how confusing I personally find it that they would choose to approach a Thalmor like _you_ to deal with, instead of someone whose character was decent enough to deserve to be approached directly.”

The elf's lips twitched slightly.

“For example a Nord like you, you mean? It is comforting to know that some things, at least, remain, unchanged… tell me, Jarl Ulfric, is your offer to refrain from chopping my head off should I choose to work against my government still open?”

Ulfric stiffened. Not much, but enough, it seemed, for the elf to notice.

“I thought as much. No matter. I am, I think, safe enough even without such promises. You have done a fairly poor job of killing me this far.”

Unarguably true, but Ondolemar should not have felt safe making such statements openly. They dared Ulfric to schedule the date, just to spite him. Ulfric frowned. Watched the elf pace back and forth three, four, five times.

“What was written in your book?” he asked, at last.

“Drivel. Heretical drivel, mostly. Not Xarxes best work, but with only two arms to transcribe with he was in something of a hurry writing it. I am willing to hold him excused.”

Ulfric was silent.

“You truly wish to know?”

“If it enough to make a Thalmor speak of joining me even in jest, then yes, I wish to know.”

“I did not speak of joining you.”

“You spoke of working against your government,” Ulfric reminded him.

“I did, yes, but since my methods are unlikely to involve taking up a sword and cutting them down in their sleep one by one until the Embassy runs red with blood, I doubt you are likely to appreciate them.”

“You assume me to be remarkably bloodthirsty, elf.”

“Oh? Do I wrong you, then?”

No, he did not, though Ulfric would have settled for the Thalmor at the Embassy being awake when they were slaughtered, and he would have preferred to wield the blade himself. Ulfric said so.

“Spoken like a true Nord. Can you see me, I wonder, or does the aura of your own glory blind you?”

Ulfric glowered at the elf, unimpressed.

“The book, elf.”

“The book,” the elf agreed. “I wonder, though, if I should be answering you so freely?"

"I can make you tell me, if that would please you better."

"Ever the diplomat, Jarl Ulfric. I foresee a happy court if ever the Moot crowns you high king. However, since you feature in roughly half of my plans for the future, I suppose you may have the honor of hearing second-hand the ancient wisdom of my ancestors.”

“Only half?”

The elf ignored that.

“The sapient points were straightforward enough. The first is that the Aedra poured too much of their power into creating the world. Until the world ends, therefore, their power is lost to them. In some ways, it is not unlike liquidating all one's assets and dumping them into a trust fund. Our faith is their interest, and they spend it to maintain their realms. Faith tastes quite pleasant, actually. Like tea. And it is not all bad for them. They do not need much faith to live. So long as someone, somewhere _does_ believe in them, or at least remembers them, they do not die no matter how often one kills them.”

The elf was babbling.

Ulfric found himself wondering if the elf would have been easier to understand if he hadn't been sober.

“Go on," he said, anyway.

“The second point is that reality is somewhat fluid up there. Think of the Aedra not as immutable, but as… eating utensils, for example. A fork is a fork, and a spoon is a spoon. But if you decide spoons ought to be called sporks, or that forks make better implements for eating soup with, you end up giving your forks and spoons a headache, with the result that, after a short period where the Aedra does his best to get his followers to _stop_ calling him the wrong name and start executing the dissidents who are misrepresenting him, the Aedra splits into two separate entities. And then Akatosh and Auri-El have to start sorting out who gets what land and which followers in their shared patch of Aetherius. Shor and Lorkhan, too. An unpleasant process for all parties concerned, one gathers, even if they are dead.”

Ulfric's brain had stalled somewhere back at 'spork.'

“… You got all this from your book?” he managed, deeply skeptical.

“No. I got nothing from the book. Lord Stendarr grossly overestimated my powers of insight. I made a deal with Xarxes, who wrote it, and would prefer to be thought of as a mass of tentacles instead of as an Aldmer. So if ever you pray to Xarxes or envision him at all, try to imagine him as someone capable of shape-shifting, won't you?”

Ulfric opened his mouth, and closed it again.

“Quite. It was that, I think, that convinced me more than all the books and all Lord Stendarr's posturing of the power we have over the Aedroth. That an Aedra capable of incinerating me with a thought for such blatant disrespect would actually _stoop_ to putting matters as bluntly as he was prepared to just for that…” the high elf trailed off, before shrugging. “Of course, I am sure it helps that we are family. I doubt he would have tolerated making such deals with a _human._ ”

Breathtaking, that casual arrogance.

Worse, however, that the elf's gods recognised it as truth. Were they family, Ulfric wondered, or was it just that the elf was right that faith could addle the memory of the gods, and so many of the elves _believed_ that they were family, they'd deluded their gods into believing them in turn?

“Anyway, we are brought, next, to point number three, which is, of course, that men do not only exist in Tamriel. Tamriel just happens to be one of the few parts of Nirn left where the mer were not slaughtered by Lorkhan and his men in the days of old. A sad truth, that so few of us managed to survive _one_ Aedra's murder spree, but there you are. It should not have surprised me. You are, after all, the descendants of those who sailed here from the Elder Woods. But since Shor is worshiped there, too, killing off every man in Tamriel will not, in fact, end the world. Elenwen will be disappointed. Assuming, of course, that she does not already know."

"If you think I will tolerate you making contacting that woman--,"

"I do not. I am not quite that far gone, yet."

"'Yet' does not sound very encouraging, elf."

"Fret not, Jarl Ulfric," the elf said, sympathetically, "Yet is unlikely to be within this year, or even this decade. At this rate, you will get yourself eaten by a dragon trying to look heroic in front of your subjects long before Sheogorath sinks his claws into me properly."

“Be careful, lest I break your face,” Ulfric warned him.

“Would you, I wonder? I wonder if you would also take me to the guest room upstairs, with the fire? It was remarkably pleasant.”

“Keep baiting me and you will soon find out.”

“A tempting offer, but I will decline it. Sad as it is to have enough of a track record from which to extrapolate such information, you seem to like stopping your beatings when I am rather more alive than Galmar chooses to. Thus, I will save my baiting for when he is here to appreciate it.”

The elf was suicidal.

Suicidal, and more than a little insane.

“Which brings us, of course, to the final point. And that is, Nirn is accessable from Aetherius primarily because of the towers that _we_ created, since men were more interested in killing everything they met back when the Aedra were walking Nirn's surface and able to teach us how to build things like towers than they were in making sure we maintained contact with Aetherius. Unimaginative of you, really. Had Lorkhan had something more productive to focus on-- alas, that he did not. But anyway, you will have noticed that magic is fading rather faster than it used to be, since the reborn Nerevarine destroyed Lorkhan's heart.”

“Had I the slightest clue about who that was, and when that had happened--,”

“Shortly before the Oblivion Crisis. And it is fading. When I was stationed in Morrowind two hundred and fifty years ago, the mages there who bothered studying magic properly could levitate with a thought, and the Divines could pluck one bodily from danger and deposit one outside their temples with barely a thought, provided one remembered to ask them before one was gutted by a blighted anything. Even during the Oblivion Crisis, it was possible to charm one's enemies and to walk about under the influence of invisibility spells so powerful that they did not shatter the moment one did something like launch a spell or stab someone. But magic, these days, is less than it used to be. And that is because Aetherius is magic, and Mundus is slipping further from it with each tower that falls.”

“And what if it is? The strength of our sword-arm does not fail just because we cannot _levitate_.”

“The strength of your sword-arm, however, will not get your soul up and over to Aetherius when you die. It will sit here, ghostly and quivering, lingering as long as you are remembered, and then it will fade, at last, into nonexistence, as your ancestors' did, and mine, in the days when the Aedra themselves were trapped on Nirn, before Lorkhan fell.”

The elf was lying. He had to be.

His eyes were dark though, as Ulfric's own were when he considered matters like Rikke and Northwatch Keep.

“You are mad, elf.”

“I am certainly angry. Witness, my Jarl, a summary in seven lines of the sum of my life, and tell me if you share my frustration.”

“I have no desire to witness the sum of your life.”

“And yet, unless you leave, you will see them anyway.”

And the elf dipped his finger in his water, then, and began to draw wet letters on the stone, upside down for Ulfric's convenience.

Ulfric looked, despite himself.

  1. a = b
  2. a2  = ab
  3. a2 \+ a2 = a2 \+ ab
  4. 2a2 = a2 \+ ab
  5. 2a2 -2ab = a2 -2ab+ ab
  6. 2 ~~(a~~ ~~2~~ ~~-ab)~~ = 1 ~~(a~~ ~~2 -ab)~~
  7. 2 = 1



“You see, of course, my problem.”

“Your handwriting?”

The elf sent him a dark look.

“Amusing. Truly. No. It is… the annoyance, perhaps, of going through what should have been a perfectly logical process, and winding up with rubbish. Obvious rubbish, which had I but taken the time to analyse properly-- but I did not. A humiliating mistake to have made. Worse, to have killed so many who might have been willing to _believe_ in the truth, and leaving my favorite Aedra to be fed by those as blind as I, until he, too, lost the ability to see. It pains me. I do not like to think of it.”

Ulfric's frown deepened.

“But to return to Xarxes' book. With the loss of so many of the towers, a step was needed. That step, according to Xarxes-- because I still refuse to admit your false-god is not false-- was granting Talos Lorkhan's mantle. Why, I have no idea, but apparently if men keep believing in him, your faith _acts_ as a simulacrum of the tower Prince Azura managed to get shattered.”

"That seems like the sort of thing one  _ought_ to be asking 'why' about," Ulfric observed.

"Ask Talos yourself if you care that much. If you are as deserving as you think you are, I am sure he will tell you himself."

Ulfric chose to ignore that.

Talos had more important matters to concern himself with than idle curiosity.

"So if I understand you correctly, elf, what you are saying is that the gods only see Tamriel because of these 'towers' of yours, and these only exist in Tamriel, and most of them have already fallen. And once all of them do, the world will continue on without an afterlife until men become extinct, at which point the world will cease to be. Is that what you are saying?"

"... More or less."

“Are you _certain_ it was not Sheogorath whom you met up there?”

“I am sure,” the elf said, sending him a filthy look. “You asked what I read. That is what I read, or what I would have read had I actually bothered to read more than three pages.”

“And you are you sure your god was not lying to you?"

“I am sure. What, exactly, do you find so hard to comprehend?”

Ulfric groped, blindly, for words. Words, perversely, eluded him.

“The towers. The need for them,” he said, eventually, though it was more than that. Much more.

“Imagine, Jarl Ulfric, that Nirn is constantly floating about, and thus the absolute value of where it is at any given point is constantly changing also, and the gods are very, very bad with directions.”

“They are gods. I have great difficulty imagining anything of the sort.”

“That is because you are a Nord, and Nords are an unimaginative race when it comes to religion. Alright, let us try this then. Imagine that I decided to tell you the longitude at which Northwatch Keep might be found. How much, exactly, would that help you?”

“A great deal, since I could follow that line until I hit the location. Will you?”

“Perhaps.”

Strange, the feeling that stirred inside his chest then. Surprise was there. Hope, too, for his fellow Nords who suffered there, and hope, too, misplaced but still _there,_ that it might not be necessary to cut this elf's head off after all, and… something. Something Ulfric did not feel like thinking about too closely, and so thrust aside.

The elf was rubbing his temple now, looking peeved.

"Alright. Longitude, I own, was a poor choice. Height, then. If I told you its height, would that help you find it?"

"No," Ulfric allowed.

“Exactly. Where Northwatch Keep is is not the point though. The point is, the towers are the defining points for our plane. Even if metaphors are not my strong point, one point does _not_ define a plane. We need an x-value, a y-value and a z-value, to define a point in three dimensions. And if we wish to properly define a plane, we need three points. I am sure Wuunferth understands that, even if you do not.”

When Ulfric was done down here, perhaps he would ask.

At the moment, he merely found himself wondering, suddenly, if the elf knew that his lips had cracked to the point of bleeding.

The elf ought, by now, to be drinking. What ailed him, that he would not?

“The problem is, none of the Aedra except Auri-El ever knew how to create things like the towers, and the Aldmer he taught those secrets to are dead. And Auri-El… well. The logic I showed you, you understand. Bad things happen to most equations when one decides dividing by zero is a good idea.”

“I am sure."

“Don't give me that look. I feel no better about this than you do...  though it may comfort you to know that even if I come up with nothing concrete before I am assassinated or executed,  _your_ false-god is trying to fix the problem too. His solution is, unimaginatively, to kill all of us. I have not spoken to him personally, but that, according to Xarxes, will _also_ fix the problem of my Lord Auri-El's insanity. Hence the reason why Talos' faithful are encouraged by him to kill us on sight."

"... It is a consoling thought, knowing that Talos hates your government as much as I do."

"I am sure it is. It is always nice to find out you have  _not_ been failing at life for the last four fifths of your existence."

“If that fact bothered you so much, elf, then why did you never _question your government_?”

“Because I was lazy.”

Ulfric waited. Nothing else came.

“So what is your plan, elf? To write to Northwatch or to Elenwen, or flee to them, preaching these 'truths' of yours in the hope that they will be less lazy than you were, and check on them?”

“Amusing, Jarl Ulfric. Do you think me suicidal? I would be locked inside a cage experiencing Rulindil's tender ministrations before I could say, 'Lord Stendarr and Lady Mara, I hate you both.'”

“Rulindil, as far as I know, is lying in a coma. Einar's work.”

There was a short silence.

“Elenwen's tender ministrations, then. And they are infinitely worse.”

Slowly, Ulfric's hands clenched. Slowly, he unclenched them.

The elf glanced at them, then back to Ulfric's face.

“You need not fret. I lost a bet with your commander, apparently... or so Xarxes tells me, because I find it hard to believe I actually _was_ stupid enough to knock myself out crawling beneath the side-table in an effort to prove to your friend that since neither of us would fit beneath it, we ought to relocate to the Main Hall. I find it harder still to accept that Galmar did not leave me there to suffer alone while he slept in your extremely comfortable bed. But if Xarxes said so, it must be at least _subjectively_ true and so, as per the terms of our bet, I will not be taunting you about whatever it was that happened between you and our illustrious First Emissary ever again. Alas, for the choice of mead. Had it been wine, I am certain I would have emerged the victor.”

When Ulfric had asked why Galmar had drunk with the elf, Galmar had coughed, looking at the ground, and muttered that he'd drunk with the elf because it had “seemed like a good idea at the time.” Was it better, Ulfric wondered, or worse, that his own inability to manage a wound more than twenty years old had apparently been the reason why his shield-brother had felt the need to get drunk with a Thalmor?

“I do not fret over words wielded by a tongue as spiteful as yours,” Ulfric said, aloud. “And had it been wine, you would likely still have been as stupid. Seldom have I met a less sharp-witted drunk.”

“You wound me, my Jarl.”

“I am not your Jarl, elf. Not unless you are prepared to swear allegiance to my cause, and even then I do not know that I would take you.”

“You do know how to stroke my ego, don't you? I feel better about my value as a mer already.”

Rotten elf.

Why was it that he felt a reluctant urge to smile?

Ulfric turned the subject bluntly.

“If your plan is not to reform your government, what is it?”

“That _is_ my plan. Unlike _your_ god, I see no need for a complete purge of the Aldmeri Dominion. If it took the Aedra less than five days to open up my eyes, I am sure there is hope for the rest of my government. It is just that I expect Auri-El to bear the brunt of the work of convincing them himself. My role ends with opening his eyes up enough to make him _see_ that two does not have to equal one just because we want it to. Once his eyes are open, I am sure he will choose not to destroy you, since that is what he did last time. If that is so, he will also, likely, choose to pick someone more magically capable than I will ever be do do whatever it is one needs to do to create the reference points needed for magic to flow freely again to Nirn, and for our souls to keep on safely leaving it.”

“… You set more store, I think, than you should in the ravings of your gods.”

“My gods do not rave,” the elf sniffed.

Ulfric said nothing. The truth, he felt, was self-evident.

After five minutes, perhaps, the elf spoke.

“Since my current plan is one that cannot be conducted properly from inside my cell, however, and since our goals do, temporarily, align, I propose a truce."

"A truce," Ulfric echoed, flatly.

"Yes."

"And just what is it that makes you think I am prepared to assist you, elf?”

"Beyond the fact that you accepted my last truce, and took the trouble to heal me when Galmar beat me senseless, you mean? Intuition. You see, to my half of the negotiating table, I am prepared to bring the knowledge of exactly where Northwatch Keep may be found.”

Ulfric moved involuntarily, and forced himself to be still. Too late, that restraint, going by the knowing glint in the elf's eyes. Ulfric wanted to strike him for thinking he could manipulate him so easily. He wanted to strike himself, too, for feeling so tempted to _be_ manipulated. The elf was his prisoner, not his guest. The Thalmor was in no position to be negotiating terms, and the thought of letting him do so anyway stung Ulfric's pride.

And yet, he could not bring himself to reject the elf's offer. Not yet.

"You said to me once before, I believe," the elf said then, "That I might consider you the instrument of my god. You remember that occasion well, I trust? I echo that advice to you now. I do not ask for my freedom, or even my life-- though it would, of course, be nice if my execution was put off until after Lord Stendarr's work was done. Thus, does it really matter if I fail or succeed, or even if I am insane, so long as you can free your false-god's children from our hands? I assure you, those hands are every inch as cruel as you imagine them to be."

“... Just how do you plan to open the eyes of your god?” Ulfric asked, at last.

“I intend to find some mer who might actually be willing to listen to me without gutting me, and encourage them to start thinking about Auri-El more than they currently do. Specifically, I mean to try my hand at converting the Dunmer here in Windhelm.”


	34. Ambarys Rendar's Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Ambarys Rendar's Bad Day

Ambarys Rendar was having a bad day.

This wasn't unusual. Ambarys had been having bad days for fifteen years now, ever since Ulfric Stormcloak-- Azura curse him-- had been released from Markarth's dungeons and returned to Windhelm to take up his self-imposed task of victimising every dark elf in Eastmarch and breaking every single oath his more kindly ancestors had carved into the Decree of Monument not two hundred years ago.

Ambarys brooded on that thought, darkly.

Unlike young Malthyr, who tended to stop working when he started thinking too deeply about Ulfric's innumerable injustices and oath-breaking tendencies, Ambarys was perfectly capable of shoveling out the snow from the doorway and brooding at the same time.

It wasn't just the snow, though, that was making today an especially bad day, and it wasn't just the fact that no one had managed to assassinate Ulfric yet, and it wasn't even the fact that the wood elf who'd refused to give a name and had actually been a _regular customer_ hadn't been seen or heard from for nearly a week now, since the Stormcloaks had sunk their claws into him. But that too, Ambarys thought, bitterly, was exactly like Jarl Ulfric. He'd probably heard that Ambarys might actually be able to pay his taxes this quarter and send back what he needed to send to his kin in Morrowind, and still have enough left over to do something about the wood rot in his walls.

Azura forbid a dark elf actually managed to have a place to sleep in that was actually _livable_ , after all.

Azura forbid a dark elf might actually think men ought to keep a promise for a measly two centuries.

Azura forbid a dark elf might actually try to be treated _fairly_.

Ambarys pretended an obstinate lump of ice was Ulfric's head, and drove his shovel through it with malice. It was a good feeling, so Ambarys did it again. It was just a pity that doing it to the  _real_ Ulfric wasn't something that he had the capability or the courage to do. Or, if not Ulfric, than at least Rolff Stone-Fist.

Because that, of course was who was responsible for Ambarys' bad day.

Rolff Stone-Fist, who took his tone from his brother and from Ulfric, and who, last night, had smashed a window pane. He had smashed that innocent pane not because there had been any _reason_ to smash it, but because throwing stones when he was ignored was the sort of thing Rolff Stone-Fist _did_  in-between hurling insults, in his drunken post-midnight wanderings, because he was a bully and be _could._  And Ambarys, after an hour of trying and failing to just _go back to sleep_ and ignore the litany of slurs and taunts that were hurtful more because of the scorn in Rolff's voice than because Ambarys actually _minded_ drinking milk or being a foreigner in this frozen hell, had snapped and emptied a chamber-pot on the Nord's head from the upper balcony in retaliation, and to shut him up.

For that, the guards had been summoned and Ambarys had been fined forty gold pieces for assault.

Assault! As though _he_ had been the _perpetrator!_ It wasn't _fair._ Rolff hadn't even _paid_ for the window he'd broken!

Yet, Ambarys promised himself, stabbing at another shovelful of snow.

Yet.

Rolff _would_ pay for that window. Even if Ambarys went bankrupt because everyone stopped coming to the New Gnisis Cornerclub because it was now freezing, wet, smelly and not sound proof at all, even if he had to sleep in sub-zero temperatures until he died of consumption, Ambarys would not pay to fix that window himself. The five gold pieces he needed for the glass, and whatever additional cost the labor of fixing it added to that sum-- because Ambarys wasn't putting that pane in himself, either, even in the unlikely event Rolff did buy it for him-- was going to come out of Rolff's pockets.

Ambarys would go to Jorleif as soon as the palace gates opened to make his case, and if Jorleif wouldn't listen, Ambarys would take it to Jarl Ulfric himself. Futile or not, Ambarys would not back down against this injustice. He would make his case, and he would _keep_ making his case until either justice was served or either Jorleif, Ulfric, Rolff or Ambarys himself died. And even then--

Abruptly, he became aware of the sound of approaching feet.

It was necessary to quell a jolt of panic. There was no  _reason_ to panic, after all. The only killer in Windhelm's streets was the Butcher, who was supposed to be dead and had only targeted female Nords even when he hadn't been, which meant that Ambarys was safe even if he _was_ alive. It was probably a guard. No, that was too optimistic. This was the Grey Quarter, after all, and unless Nords were in it, the Grey Quarter was not given the honor of patrols. It was probably someone else coming to smash another window and charge him forty gold pieces for objecting to it. Ambarys brooded on that thought bitterly, too.

 _"Why don't you just pack your bags and go back to Morrowind?"_  the guards often said, when he visited the Palace of the Kings, and  _thought_ it, Ambarys was sure, even when they weren't saying it out loud.

At times like now, at five in the morning, listening to those feet getting closer, Ambarys wondered the same thing.

The whole of Windhelm despised him.

Even his kin here, more than half of them, despised him for insisting he had rights.

He could afford the journey. It would make a dent in his savings, surviving it, but he could afford it.

The ash storms were gone. There was no reason to stay in Skyrim.

No reason, except that once, a lifetime ago, Ambarys Rendar had been a server at a club owned by House Hlaalu. He still carried the paranoia of those days, when assassinating people had been a legal occupation, people thought nothing of killing you for bringing them the wrong drink, and the only thing that stood between you and the Temple Prisons was never, ever admitting aloud that you sometimes still prayed to Azura.

The nobility of House Redoran, who were the ruling power in Morrowind these days, had never quite sorted out _who_ came first now the Tribunal were dead, but if the New Temple took off-- and it was looking like it might do just that-- then the new Three were  _looking_ like they might be Mephala, Boethiah, and Azura. Ambarys liked Azura well enough, and he respected Mephala for her cleverness, competence and scheming, but Boethiah... Boethiah terrified him. Moreover, Ambarys _also_ liked the Divines, and the Temple had had little enough patience for them even before the Empire had abandoned Morrowind during the Oblivion Crisis.

Now... rumors were rare, but the Temple had had a long history of executing dissidents.

All mer did, actually. It was an unfortunate truth, that most mer took religion a lot more seriously than men did.

Ambarys might not  _like_ being despised, but Ulfric's father and grandfather had been much kinder than Ulfric, and if Ulfric didn't have any children-- and that was looking less and less likely with each passing year the man spent unwed-- then, Azura willing, the next Jarl might very well be kind again.

Ambarys would risk it.

It was worth risking it, because-- a chilling thought, this-- if he ever went home to Morrowind, and gave voice to his secret thought that it was no coincidence, whatever the New Temple said, that the Red Mountain had blown up and the Argonians had invaded in the same year that the Tribunal had been abandoned by the Dunmer and reclassified merely as 'saints', he suspected he would end up in a cold, dark cave, still trying to stammer to whatever priest was force-feeding him poison or dismembering him that he hadn't meant any disrespect to the Daedra even as he choked to death on a mouthful of his own blood.

The footsteps grew louder. Two pairs of them.

Ambarys became aware, suddenly, that he'd frozen in useless terror at these dark imaginings, and was accomplishing nothing.

He returned to shoveling.

"Good morning, cousin," a voice said then, and at the sound of it Ambarys stiffened, because it was a _familiar_ voice.

It belonged to an Altmer, and more importantly, it belonged to the Altmer he'd technically aided and abetted, and encouraged to assassinate Jarl Ulfric. In short, it was an unwelcome greeting from an unwelcome person, and Ambarys would have given much to know, when he turned, scowling, to look at the high elf, just why a Justiciar was standing in the street outside the doorway of his Cornerclub with only _one_ measly Stormcloak guarding him, instead of kneeling at the chopping block.

"I don't see what's good about it," he said, sullenly, naturally saying none of these things.

"An unarguable point. I would not either, if I lived where you do. I assume this... hovel doubles as your house?"

It was only forty gold pieces, these days, for assault.

Ambarys had half a mind to slam his shovel down on the Justiciar's head.

"It is my _business,_ not my _hovel,"_ Ambarys said, glaring, "And yes, it does. Not that it's any concern of _yours._ After all, we both know you aren't the sort of mer who'd  _lower_ yourself to entering my hovel just for some _wine,_ are you?"

"I might be," the Thalmor said, unexpectedly, "Assuming you stock something rather better than mead. Flin, perhaps."

A customer?

Greed warred with pride.

"... Do you have any gold?"

"Cahlad does. Don't you, Cahlad?" the high elf said, making the sort of vague, imperious gesture that came naturally to aristocrats everywhere.

"I do, but I'll be damned before I give it to  _you,_ " the Stormcloak said. "Find someone else to fund your drinking habits, goldskin."

Ambarys felt a bit better about life in general. It was comforting to know that it wasn't  _just_ him who was despised by the Nords of Windhelm, even if this particular elf had done a lot more to deserve being despised than Ambarys had.

"I do not suppose you accept IOUs, cousin?"

"I don't."

"Unhelpful of you," the Justiciar said, and entered his club.

"If this is a plot to arrest me for talking to a Thalmor," Ambarys warned the Stormcloak, who for some reason hadn't followed the Altmer inside, "I'm going to add that to my complaint about my window when I speak to Jorleif later today. I may be neutral in the war, and I may think it will serve you right if you lose it, but that _doesn't_ make me a spy. I've never spied in my life, and don't appreciate you trying to drum up false evidence against me. It's not _fair_ to treat me this way."

"By Talos, do you ever  _not_ whine?"

Outrage swelled Ambarys' chest.

"Rest assured, cousin, that is not my plan," the Thalmor said, soothingly, from somewhere inside, "I require your aid, that is all. You are certain you do not accept IOUs? For so humble an establishment, your selection is quite impressive."

Ambarys hesitated, torn.

To stay out here, where he  _definitely_ could not be framed as a traitor for having secret dealings with a Thalmor, or to go inside and see what it was that this foppish Altmer needed his help with, and what he was doing poking about in Ambarys' stores?

"... see that no one touches my spade," Ambarys commanded the Stormcloak, and followed the Justiciar into his club.

The high elf wasn't stealing his wine after all. He was just looking at it, back to the door. His shoulders were tense. More tense than his face had been, and his voice, which immediately made Ambarys wary.

"If you're planning on asking me for a loan, or to help you get a message out to your side--,"

"I am not."

... That was that then. If he was being honest. 

It looked like the high elf wasn't planning on turning around, so Ambarys walked around the counter to face him, and folded his arms across his chest.

"Just what are you here for, then? You've sneered at me once too often, cousin, for me to think you came here for the pleasure of my company."

"I am here to ask you for something, as I said before."

Ambarys waited, expectantly. Nothing came. 

Altmer in general were bad at favors, Ambarys' father had always said. Ambarys didn't think his father was wrong.

"If you want me to do something for you-- not that I will-- you're going to have to tell me what it is that you want me to do, first, before I can do it for you," Ambarys said, bluntly, just in case this particular high elf was so bad at them he didn't even know this most basic of facts.

The high elf sent him a dry look.

"I am aware. I am simply... working out how to phrase the matter. It is difficult for me."

Suspicion stirred once more.

"If it's names you want for your government, I'm not giving them to you."

"I do not seek them. My government's goals and mine have... diverged, slightly. As matters stand, therefore, I now have no use for such things."

Ambarys sorted that out inside his mind.

"Turned traitor, did you? That didn't take long."

"No. I suppose it didn't."

Something flickered in the Altmer's eyes, as he said that. It wasn't a happy something, but then, why would it be? No one  _liked_ to turn traitor, after all, and abandon their government and their homeland. Ambarys found himself feeling vaguely sorry for the Thalmor-- the ex-Thalmor, he supposed-- and wondered what horrors Jarl Ulfric had inflicted on him, to make such a stiff-necked snob decide to betray the mer he'd fought beside for what had probably, given the insular nature of the Summerset Isles even before the Thalmor had claimed it, been most of his life.

He extracted a bottle of Alto wine and a glass, and poured the other elf a drink.

"On the house," he said, at the sharp, inquiring look that earned him.

The high elf didn't take it.

"I assure you, your sympathy is misplaced. I am turning traitor because I happen to like the Nords of Windhelm, and because I am less sure that my Aedra approve of my objectives than I was one month ago, not because I snapped beneath whatever torments you are imagining."

Ambarys felt a flicker of disbelief.

"You _like_  the Nords here?"

It was  _possible_ to like the Nords here?

"Mm. Unfortunate, really."

Well, if he liked Ulfric Stormcloak, the mer deserved whatever his government did to him in retaliation.

The drink reversed direction. Ambarys downed it in one hit.

"Tell me, my cousin, in your long, long list of gods to whom you pray--,"

"Talos isn't on it," Ambarys said, firmly, "I don't pray to Talos. Not even in private."

"Flattering as it is to know that I intimidate you to that extent, that is not where I am going with this. I believe I mentioned that my government and I are having certain... disagreements at present?"

"That's what you _said,_ yes."

"... A fair point," the ex-Justiciar allowed, grudgingly, after a short pause. "Still, the direction I am headed, Rendar, is, have you ever considered praying to the Aedra?"

"I do. I ask Akatosh for justice almost as often as I ask Stendarr. Not that either of them ever seem to give me any."

"I do not refer to the Imperial Divines. I refer to  _our Aedra_."

"... What's the difference?" Ambarys said, and then, before the high elf could answer, "Actually, no. I take it back. Don't answer that. I've already got the Thalmor, House Redoran, and the Stormcloaks trying to tell me what to think, and why I'm a failure for not believing the things they want me to. The last thing I need is _you_ pitching in giving me a headache pushing temple matters. If it's religion you're here for, the answer is no."

"... Well, at least you are honest," the ex-Thalmor said, after a short pause, with the air of one making the best of a bad business, "Do you know any other mer more likely to consider such matters than you seem to be? The matter is more than a little pressing."

"No. But then, I have more important things to discuss with my kin than which gods we pray to."

The high elf's lips thinned, unimpressed.

"A pity. If you change your mind, my cousin, you know where you may find me. I will be rotting in my cell, plotting alternatives to _you,_ and concerning myself with the affairs of my ancestors, which unlike you I _do_ happen to find important."

"Noted. But I promise you, it would take more than _words_ to get me interested in whatever god it is you want me to pray to."

"Such as...?"

"I'd settle for the sewage not leaking into my basement once a week."

"So little?"

"Try living with it for ten years, and tell me then if you still think it is little."

"... Fair enough," the ex-Thalmor allowed. "May I have your word on that interest, Rendar?"

Why not? The sewers weren't going to fix themselves. Ulfric needed to order it first, and it would take more than a deity to move the lump of icy stone that served Ulfric Stormcloak for a heart. If Azura and Akatosh hadn't together managed to shift it so much as an inch in fifteen years, there wasn't the slightest chance at all that the favored god of an ex-Thalmor was going to have any luck.

"You may," Ambarys said, pouring himself another glass, "In fact, if your Aedra can get the sewers fixed, I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me about them and build an altar in my bedroom and sing praises to them every night for a century. But until then, you're not allowed to come here and bother me. Not ever, no matter how many times they're lax enough to let you out of your cell like this."

"A fair deal. Very well, cousin. Until your sewers are fixed, then, farewell. You really should do something about that window, too, by the way. It lets in a most unpleasant draft."

With that, the Altmer was gone and Ambarys, who was poised already to launch into a monologue of this morning's misfortunes that was to have been so eloquently expressed that even the most asinine Nord-lover out there couldn't _help_ but despise them at the end of it, watched him leave, feeling vaguely cheated.

That ought, really, to have been the end of it.

It ought to, and yet, Ambarys found himself wondering things, over the course of the day.

He wondered whether the elf-- who seemed softer, somehow; less cruel, than he had been inside the dungeon-- would have been more or less sympathetic to the Tale of the Broken Window than Jorleif, who'd asked him if he had _proof_ Rolff had broken it-- Proof! Was Ambarys' first-hand account not enough? But such injustice was no less than Ambarys had expected. It would not shake his resolution!-- Or Malthyr, who'd had the temerity to sleep through everything and, when told of the traversity that was Rolff's crimes and Jorleif's indifference, had actually uttered the unforgivable words  _it could have been worse_.

He wondered what difference the ex-Thalmor thought he could make, to have approached him directly.

But most of all, what Ambarys found himself wondering was, petty, and utterly pointless, if this unknown, unnamed ex-Thalmor _knew_ how much Ambarys  _wanted_ there to be a god somewhere who cared enough about Ambarys' suffering to _do_ something about it the way the Tribunal had in the days of old, when Ambarys had been a boy and the gods had still cared _enough_ about mer who cried out in anguish to _help_  them.


	35. Activity Is Not Achievement (But It's Getting There)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Activity Is Not Achievement (But It's Getting There)

Northwatch Keep, if Ondolemar was to be believed-- and having believed his fantastical talk of Towers, stones, gods and the ending of the world, Ulfric saw no reason to doubt the elf's word on a matter of simple geography-- was a ruined fort fairly close to the northern shoreline, far enough from Solitude for Ulfric to consider seriously whether or not a few longboats rowed about the coast might well make it there for a midnight ambush without unduly disturbing Tullius.

If they rowed north, and carried them over the ice too thick to row over, then yes, Ulfric thought, they might.

That was... not something he had expected.

That made purging that vile place a possibility even before the war was won.

Not that Ulfric cared on principle if Tullius  _did_ know that he was attacking Northwatch Keep, but though there was nothing written into the terms of the treaty about not attacking the Thalmor, Tullius was the sort of pedantic Imperial who would undoubtedly argue-- using Jarl Elisif's tongue-- that two longboats of Ulfric's soldiers led by Ulfric himself crossing into Haafingar's seas was a violation of the peace treaty anyway, no matter who their target was.

Ulfric considered that objectively.

Grudgingly, he allowed that Tullius might have a point.

Certainly, had Tullius tried to send two boatfulls of Imperial soldiers into Eastmarch and tried to argue when they'd been caught that they'd only been hunting vampires, Ulfric would have felt very few qualms about beheading the lot of them.

Galling, that one miserable peace treaty, designed solely to make a Jarl that Ulfric had himself sat on Whiterun's throne agree to let Einar catch one lizard that had  _been_ caught for almost a week now, was now stopping him from freeing men who suffered as he himself had suffered, once, twenty years ago. Had he not been a Jarl, Ulfric might have tossed his word aside like so much useless chaff.

He was a Jarl, however.

And so Ulfric forced back the memories, dipped his quill into his inkwell and-- for his countrymen who suffered in that vile keep, wrote:

_To Elisif the Fair, Jarl of Solitude,_

_The Thalmor nest in your lands. I would drive them from the shores of our homeland, even before I drove out the Empire if I could. I do not ask you to lend me men. I know the power Tullius holds in your lands, and the treaty that hobbles the Empire. What I ask for is your silence while I cross your borders and end their outrages myself. I am aware that ~~I killed your husband~~ we have had our differences, but for our countrymen who suffer there, I ask you to put aside your hatred of me._

_I know the elves haven taken your people, as they have tried to take mine. Well do you know that even the torments of your own dungeons pale when compared to the torments the Thalmor inflict upon those with the courage not to deny Talos._

_Think of them, before you think of your own power. The Empire will not protect you when I drive them from Skyrim's shores,_

_Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, of Windhelm._

Ulfric read over that letter, once, twice, and scrunched it up into a tiny ball.

Three more attempts joined it in the corner.

The truth was, there was no way to write that letter.

Jarl Elisif was the widow of a king he had, quite literally, shouted to pieces. She was a Nord who liked the Empire, and had ridden to High Hrothgar next to Elenwen. There was not the smallest chance in Oblivion she would let him cross armed into Haafingar to rescue the prisoners of the elves whose parties she probably attended each year, no matter how much eloquence or how many threats Ulfric put into that letter.

There was probably not the slightest chance she cared for those prisoners at all.

It was breaking his word, or waiting for Alduin to die.

"Jorleif," Ulfric said, abruptly, rising from his writing desk and stalking back to the throne room, brow black, "Get me a courier, and find out just where Einar is, and how close the Treaty is to being ended for good."

\--O--

Windhelm's prisons were slightly less cold than Windhelm's streets, and stank a good deal less than the Grey Quarter.

Thus, when Cahlad informed Ondolemar-- who was still vainly searching for anything _resembling_ a proper sewer in the cold, dank streets of this wretched slum-- that it was getting close to eight, and he was going to be locked up again in half an hour so that he was not mobbed by Windhelm's populace, Ondolemar was not entirely sorry.

What he _was_ sorry about was the fact that, according to Cahlad, the probability of Rendar directing his prayers in Auri-El's direction at any point before Ulfric Stormcloak died was about as high as the probability that Ulfric Stormcloak would, if he took Solitude, decide the Empire was not so bad after all, and decide not to cut Tullius' head off. Cahlad, of course, was not talking about Rendar's prayers specifically. Cahlad was talking about the probability of Ulfric deciding to do anything about his sewers.

"I do not see the objection. This is not the Merethic Era, after all, even if this city _was_ built back then. Even a dedicated gutter would be an improvement on what you have now."

"We have them, elf."

"I have," Ondolemar gritted out evenly, "Been looking for the wretched things for _two hours_ and  _now_ you tell me you have them?"

"How was I supposed to know that's what you were looking for?"

That was, obviously, not worth dignifying with an answer.

Ondolemar settled for glaring at his escort.

"Perhaps then, if you know where they are, and you know I am looking for them, you would consider pointing them out to me?"

"I can't. Not at the moment."

Ondolemar breathed in. Deeply.

"And just why is that, Cahlad?"

"Because they're snowed over at the moment. They tend to down here, especially in winter. That's _why_ this used to be called the Snow Quarter. Still, the problem's gotten worse since the greyskins moved down here. Even Kyne and Talos despise them, m'father says."

Ondolemar resisted the urge to place a finger against his temple.

"It never occurred to you that it was in need of fixing?"

"Sometimes. But I don't make those calls. Jorleif does."

"And it does not bother  _Jorleif_ that Windhelm's waste disposal system is an age or three out of date?" 

"I doubt it, since he hasn't done anything about it. Besides, it's worked for the last three ages."

"Clearly, if it floods regularly, it has not been."

Cahlad folded his arms across his chest.

"It's worked _well enough._ And what would _you_ put in instead?"

"A closed sewer does not seem unreasonable. It would be worth it for the smell alone."

"The _smell."_

"I assume you do have _some_ olfactory senses left, even after butchering them as long as you have done in this malodorous city?"

Cahlad rolled his eyes.

"Elves and your prissy sensibilities. You'd dig up the foundation of Windhelm just to make your _nose_ happier, would you? Talos forbid you had a bad smell bothering you, after all. A dragon attack'd be nothing to it. I can see why Jarl Ulfric and the Steward would think it was worth diverting tens of thousands of gold pieces from the war effort to dig us a nest underneath our city for thieves to live in, and for assassins and spies to creep through, just to avoid  _that_."

"... You've been to Riften, have you?" Ondolemar said, grudgingly.

"I have. I've been to the Imperial City too, back in the day."

Unfortunate, on both counts.

Ondolemar said so.

"Jarl Ulfric has too," the Stormcloak added.

"And here I was thinking he had obtained his status as a hero during the Great War by  _not_ fighting in it," Ondolemar said, snidely.

Cahlad rolled his eyes and went back to leaning against the wall behind him.

An unhelpful specimen. Ondolemar ignored him. There was, unfortunately, not enough time to poke  _properly_ about in Windhelm's snow to locate its gutters, so that would need to be reserved for some other day. Preferably, a day when Ondolemar had a stick or a sword to poke with, instead of his hands. Ambarys had more problems than just his sewers though, if Ondolemar was any judge. He was no engineer, but from the angle of the roof, the buildup of snow on the dead-flat shelf of stone the New Gnisis Cornerclub stood on, and the holes that riddled Ambarys' walls, the Dunmer's Club probably flooded every time there was enough sunlight to melt the snow from his eaves.

Installing proper drains _somewhere_ might fix it. Finding--

"Seven forty-six, goldskin. It's time you were returning to your cell."

"How do you even know what the time is so precisely?"

Cahlad chose to ignore that.

Irritating Nord.

"I will be allowed to return here tomorrow, yes?" Ondolemar said, hesitating.

"Assuming you don't try killing anyone or running. If you do, Talos knows what the Jarl'll decide to do to you."

Very likely shout at him, talk about Talos a great deal, and punch him. None of those things, however, fitted in well with Ondolemar's plans for his future, and so Ondolemar merely "mm'd", fell into step beside Cahlad, and kept an eye out for any sewer channels that weren't covered over by snow.

For some illogical reason, every house looked the same, in Windhelm. Was it the snow, or the near-uniform design of them? Both perhaps. Easy-- too easy-- to become lost in this maze of streets. He'd need to work on remembering them better. He would need to look for landmarks.

... Not landmarks for _that_ house, however.

That one had cobwebs at its entrance, and a puddle of dark something outside its door that looked very much like blood.

Ondolemar paused mid-stride, frowning.

Had that blood not been there when he'd first walked past, or had he just not seen it since the sun had not yet risen?

"Ignore it," Cahlad said, glancing back at him. "It's the Butcher's work. Nasty incident, that. Dead now, but blood lasts forever on cold snow."

"I am very sure you are wrong."

"I'm not. Stands to reason, doesn't it? The Butcher's been dead a month now, and it's still there."

There was, Ondolemar supposed, a certain logic to that, whatever common sense told him.

He kept walking.

"Why do you care about the smell here, anyway?" Cahlad asked, after a while.

"I do not."

The Nord sent him a doubtful look.

"'Prissy' though my sensibilities unarguably are, Cahlad, I am not likely to appreciate the absence of the stench of your slums from my primary residence in the prison, now am I? All I care about is the problem of your leaking sewage."

"Why?"

"Rendar," Ondolemar said, shortly.

"... Why do you care about Rendar?"

"Do you expect me to believe that Galmar is able to hear what I discuss with your Jarl, but you are not?"

There was a slight pause.

"The commander discourages us from listening," Cahlad admitted, grudgingly. "He says we gossip too much."

"Do you, Cahlad?"

"... Maybe."

"Then I will respect Galmar's wisdom, and I, too, will refrain from telling you why I care about placating Rendar."

"If you're trying to save the Jarl a headache by shutting him up, you're out of luck. That one would find something to whine about even in... well, wherever dark elves do go when they die."

"Quaint, that you think I care enough about Ulfric that the thought of him having a headache would actually bother me. I do not. And since in most cases that 'wherever' is Oblivion, I find that highly likely," Ondolemar said, stepping around another dark puddle of blood, "After all, Oblivion tends to be an unstable collection of realms, populated by daedra and Daedric Princes who enjoy doing things like hunting down mortal souls and tearing them to shreds. Hardly any sane person's idea of paradise."

"... How do you know?"

"Admittedly, I do not know. Since the Daedra do have some sane servants, I suppose there must be men and mer who do like the idea."

Cahlad looked like that hadn't been quite what he'd meant, but he shrugged anyway.

"... Mad bastards."

"Quite."

Silence, for a bit. Then:

"My brother said the Forsworn worship the daedra."

"He is not wrong. Undoubtedly, the Forsworn and at least some of the Dunmer will stumble across each other when they are dead. They will probably spend a great deal of time complaining about whose fault it was they ended up in whatever realm they do end up in, and lament their poor life choices together."

The palace loomed before them. The guards inside opened it the moment Cahlad knocked.

Another bothersome flaw in Windhelm's security. Had Ondolemar been in charge--

Alas, that he was not.

Ondolemar had made it half way to the barracks when he became aware, abruptly, of the fact that Cahlad was not following.

"If you expect me to lock myself up, you will need to give me the keys."

Curiously, Cahlad hesitated.

Ondolemar frowned at him, wondering what ailed him.

"I'm not... that is, we can stop by the kitchens, if you want, for breakfast, elf. I doubt old Ironkettle'll be in there yet. Even if he is, I doubt he's capable of bludgeoning you to death. He's too old for that, these days."

Food? This Nord was offering him actual... food?

That was... unexpected.

That had not been part of the terms of this truce.

That was the sort of soft, sentimental thing Elof would have said.

"If you intend to throw yourself on any swords for me, know that the act is not one that will be appreciated by me."

"I'm not seeing the logical jump, elf, but if I'm ever insane enough to think throwing myself on a sword for a Thalmor's a good idea, I'll try and remember that."

Ondolemar eyed him doubtfully. The Nord  _seemed_ sincere, certainly.

"There's no need to look at me like that. I'm not planning on poisoning you, and I'm not going soft. I still don't  _like_ you, and I still reckon the best place for you is the chopping block. It's just that the way I see it, if Jarl Ulfric's willing to trust you and work with you, I'm going to have to do the same eventually, so I might as well start now. And at the moment, you're a twig," Ondolemar made a protesting noise; Cahlad plowed on, firmly, "You are. You weren't when you got here, and if you keep it up, you'll be a sack of bones. You're no good to anyone dead."

Being hungry was _not_ the same thing as being dead. Ondolemar was tempted to point out that Lord Naarifin had lasted thirty-three days strung up from the White-Gold Tower without food, shade or water, before the Dominion had managed to dupe Cyrodiil's battlemages long enough to send in a pair of Winged Twilights to rescue their unfortunate general.

Ondolemar was no Lord Naarifin, but he also stood in no immediate danger of joining Auri-El in Aetherius.

Still... Nords were a curious lot.

"... Where are the kitchens?" Ondolemar said, at last.

"This way," Cahlad said, and led him there.

The kitchen was empty, after all, but there was food, as promised, and more importantly, there was a fire there that Ondolemar immediately gravitated towards, feeling his disposition towards his escort rise several notches. It rose several more when he helped himself to the stew.

"You a priest, by any chance?" Cahlad asked, watching him eat.

"No."

"You _sound_ like one, sometimes."

"If I do, it is the purest coincidence. I do not know how your politics work in Skyrim, but in Alinor, that position is about as far above _my_ rank as _I_ am above _you."_

"So not very, then."

Ondolemar glared at the Nord, and changed the topic.

"Tell me, what other mer live in Windhelm these days? Are all the Dunmer here like Rendar?"

"Complainers, you mean? More or less. The ones who don't say it _think_ it."

Unfortunate, that.

"Of course, they're not all bad. They're not all greyskins, either. There's Niranye. She's a high elf, like you and she's actually useful."

Ondolemar's spirits perked up a bit.

"Go on."

"She owns a stall in the market. Her prices are good too, and if you want a tip on almost anything going on in Eastmarch, she's the one to go to... though her price for that is a lot _less_ good. Downside is, everyone knows she's a thief, even if we can't prove it. Torsten swore she had ties with the Summerset Shadows too, back before Jarl Ulfric killed 'em. And there's Nurelion too. He owns the potion shop, but he's on his deathbed, they say."

Ondolemar's spirits dropped again.

Ambarys Rendar might complain excessively, but at least he wasn't a thief, or dying.

He was back to fixing the sewers, then. A daunting prospect. What he needed was an engineer.

Did Windhelm  _have_ anything as sophisticated as an engineer?

"I heard you told Ulfric where Northwatch Keep was."

"I see that your commander was not wrong about your rumormongering tendencies."

There was a slight pause.

"... My cousin's in Northwatch Keep."

Ah. 

"That is... unfortunate for him," Ondolemar said, at last.

"Her."

"Her, then."

Silence, for a little while. Then:

"How long ago was she caught?" Ondolemar asked.

"Three months back."

Three months?

"My condolences on your bereavement. I would offer you flowers, but I doubt you would appreciate them, coming from the person who probably signed the documents that sent her there in the first place."

The Stormcloak sucked in a soft, sharp breath. His hands clenched at his sides.

Ondolemar tracked these danger signs warily, and wondered if his bowlful of stew would survive a brawl.

Then the Nord's hands unclenched. The danger passed.

"I exaggerate, if it comforts you. She may yet live. It seems unlikely to me, I own, but though we are not kind to them in that place, there were those who lasted there for more than a year."

There had been more who had lasted less than a week. Meaningless, those deaths. Regrettable, too, if man's faith in Talos was operating as a Tower, and Ondolemar's goal now was to stop as many Towers from vanishing as he could.

Later, when Auri-El was no longer blind, and when the connection between Nirn and Aetherius was no longer as tenuous as it was now, Ondolemar would allow himself the luxury of feeling guilty about all the men and mer he had sent on to enter Aetherius before their time. For now, however, he would continue to cling to the principle that regretting what could not be changed was an unproductive use of one's time, and divert his energies instead to devising a plan to fix the sewers.

Sightlessly, he stared at the fire.

The problems with this plan were glaring when one thought on it too closely, that was the trouble.

Even if he did manage to persuade Ulfric to fix the sewers-- or failing that, fixed them himself-- was Ambarys Rendar the sort of mer who could be relied upon to believe, not that Auri-El  _would_ do what he wanted, but that Auri-El was the sort of god with the autonomy to  _choose_ what he did and did not want? Did Ondolemar himself have enough eloquence to convince him? He did not know. He had enough trouble himself trying to remember that the goal was not to believe Auri-El did not want Nirn gone, but that Auri-El had the power to  _decide_ if he did or didn't.

It wasn't a hard concept to grasp, but then, neither was the fact that Ulfric Stormcloak liked anyone who liked Skyrim and Talos and brawling in general a lot more than he liked anyone who didn't, and Ambarys had failed abysmally to grasp that truth for fifteen years.

He needed to be careful that his interference did not make matters worse.

He needed to be careful, too, that he did not fall asleep in here. That was the danger with fires, hot food, and feeling _full_. With warmth in general, really. It and a few nights without sleep were dangerous enough alone without being added together. That had been his downfall in Markarth, too.

Abruptly, he stood.

"Done, are you?" Cahlad said.

"I believe so."

The Stormcloak stood, putting away the knife he'd been polishing-- and when had he started that?

It mattered not.

A short walk later, Ondolemar was locked back inside his freezing prison cell, wondering if the decision to leave him the quilted tunic, fleece pants and fur-lined boots that had been loaned to him for his morning excursion had been intentional.

Probably, it had been.

Probably.

And then he was alone.

Ondolemar occupied himself by pacing.

Mindlessly, restlessly, he paced, long after his brain had stopped presenting him with anything useful to justify it.

Mostly, his thoughts were caught in a meaningless, recurring loop.

If he failed, what then?

Useless, such fears. As useless as guilt. They, too, needed to be brushed aside.

He would fail, or he would not fail. If it was the latter, all would be well. If it was the former, Lord Stendarr would pick someone else. All did not depend on him. It did not, and he  _knew_ that it did not, and yet these unwelcome, unwanted fears continued to plague him. Why was it not possible to just brush them aside? Why was it so difficult to turn his mind from thoughts of an old dream of a defaced statue, worshiped by the Thalmor in no tongue he knew, with severed wrists and empty holes instead of eyes?

_Because that is what you made of him._

_You, who cut out his tongue when you ignored his words._

_You, who poisoned him with your tainted faith._

_You, who turned him into what he is._

"I did not mean to," Ondolemar said, to no one. "None of us meant to."

Just what did that fix though?

Nothing. Less than nothing, really, and it was no wonder Lord Stendarr kept losing mer to suicide, if the truth hurt all of them like this.

He was overtired, perhaps. Perhaps he should have slept, after all.

He still could.

And yet he paced, tired beyond exhaustion.

_I_ will _find a way to fix this._ _Your hands I will restore, and your eyes will see again. Even if I have to fix a gutter for every Dunmer in Windhelm, I will see to it that I undo what I have done._ _You will be no second Lorkhan. You will be no second Trinimac, either. We, who would die for you, are not capable of defiling you so completely, no matter how blind we have become._

_You will rule us as you once did. This I swear, upon my life._

_No, this I swear upon my very soul._


	36. Of Technicalities and Clauses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## Of Technicalities and Clauses

**Day One- Morning**

The ex-Thalmor was shoveling the snow out of the gutters.

He was competently shoveling. That was the first thing that surprised Ambarys Rendar, who was watching (and pretending not to) from his bedroom window. That, and the fact that the elf was doing something practical at all, instead of just praying. Well, if he thought _that_ was going to qualify as the sort of Divine Intervention Ambarys wanted to see before he built an altar to one of this Altmer's Aedra, he had another thing coming. Anyone could shovel snow out of a gutter. Ambarys _himself_ could have shoveled out the gutters, if he'd chosen to and if anyone had been willing to pay him to do so. This wasn't fixing the sewers at all!

Ambarys crawled back into bed, teeth chattering, and dragged his bear pelt up above his head. The digging continued. Ambarys did his best to ignore it, and tried his best to distract himself from the aching cold by reciting all the arguments he'd make later today to Jorleif to force the Nord to order Rolff Stone-Fist to pay to fix his window.

**Day One- Evening**

_I'd settle for the sewage not leaking into my basement once a week,_ Rendar had said.

If Ondolemar had had a better idea for how to stop the wretched things from blocking up than clearing them of the ice that clogged them himself, he would not have stooped to asking Cahlad for a spade. He did not, though, and so he had, and the Nord had give it to him. A welcome surprise. Less welcome was the fact that it had turned out that, unlike Galmar, Cahlad was not a Nord who was open to either bribery or bets to see if he'd do the shoveling instead. Ondolemar was stuck doing this task alone. 

Well, even in Windhelm, one was bound to stumble across competence eventually.

Ondolemar had taken the setback stoically, and applied himself to his task.

Later, inside his cell, Ondolemar's stiff, aching muscles reminded him that it had been nearly two months since they'd done anything useful. Well, Ondolemar reminded his muscles, that was why they should feel grateful that they were getting a workout now.

There had to be a more permanent solution to the problem though. Even if Nords had to sink to putting bodily wastes inside a box for a night-man to collect and cart outside Windhelm's gates each week to empty, there would be a solution to the problem that was Windhelm's gutters.

Failing that, Ondolemar would twist Ulfric's arm somehow.

A well-placed taunt? A drinking match?

A comment about the probable spread of disease?

A comment that Ondolemar was going to do his back if he had to keep this up for a month?

No. Standards. Ondolemar had standards. He was an Altmer of Alinor. He would always be, no matter how many subordinates he betrayed.

Ondolemar paced more often than he slept and when sleep did overtake him, he dreamed of blood and darkness. His own fault, of course. He was too much in the habit of praying to Auri-El, and praying to an Aedra one was hoping _wasn't_ going to realise what one was doing until after one had safely done it, as he had done last night, was and had been the purest stupidity. There was not the slightest doubt his Lord knew exactly what he was up to now. Knew, and disapproved. Vividly.

Still, it was... comforting, in a way, the horror of those dreams.

Auri-El was not pleased with him, but Auri-El had not abandoned him. Anger was better than silence.

That night, he dreamed, over and over, that he was plummeting from the top of a lighthouse to the jagged, rocky ground.

**Day Three- Night**

It was midnight, and Rolff Stone-Fist was drunk again. Malthyr had taken to wearing earmuffs when he slept. He said it worked. Perhaps it did, but Ambarys wasn't going to do that. He shouldn't _need_ to do that. Besides, sleeping with earmuffs on wasn't going to let him hear when Rolff tried smashing his windows again, and Rolff almost certainly _would_ try that, having gotten away so easily with that vile crime last time. The New Gnisis Cornerclub was cold enough as it was without losing more of them.

“You don't belong here, milkdrinker!”

“You waste our taxes and y'expect us to defend you from the lizards!”

“Y'r all spies!”

“Y're all weaklings who won't lift a blade for our cause!”

“My brothers are out there dyin' and you're whinin' about _gold._ ”

"Go back to Morrowind, maggots! You're not welcome here!"

“Ysgramor had the right idea 'bout what t'do with the lot of ye!”

“Skyrim's for the Nords!”

Forty gold pieces for emptying a chamber pot on the man's head, Ambarys reminded himself, at three in the morning. At four. Forty gold pieces, in this unjust Windhelm run by an uncaring, craven oath-breaker who'd probably have behaved _just_ like Rolff if he'd had the time to spare from his power-grabbing schemes to do so. One day, Rolff Stone-Fist would be dead. One day, Ulfric Stormcloak would be dead too. And when that happened, Ambarys would open his secret stash of Cyrodiilic brandy, and drink to whichever of the Daedra had had a hand in that happy event coming to be.

**Day Four- Morning**

The ex-Thalmor was shoveling again. He was also arguing with his guard. Something about the smell, a self-sustaining cycle of hot water being used to melt the frozen channels, and, curiously, fire-salts. The Stormcloak, it was clear, was about as impressed with this plan as Ambarys was himself. Fire-salts were _expensive._ They were worth fifty gold pieces, and no sane alchemist would part with them for less than one hundred. If Windhelm had the gold to be using fire-salts for anything, it had no right to be taxing Ambarys to destitution for the privilege of existing.

The guard said something about goldskins and their fancy magics turning real men soft.

The ex-Thalmor made an unfortunate remark about his guard, his guard's mother, and a goat.

A brief scuffle followed. Ambarys winced, watching. He didn't _like_ the Thalmor, but he liked Nords even less, and having been on the receiving end of more than one Nordic fist himself, he knew that there was only one possible outcome for this fight.

Sure enough, the ex-Thalmor was creamed.

**Day Five- Midday**

The Dragonborn turned up in Windhelm, filthy and battered and cheerful. Apparently, a dragon called Alduin was dead, and Sovngarde was safe. Ulfric declared a holiday across the whole of Windhelm. Nords cheered. Nords got drunk. Nords brawled on the streets and embraced each other afterwards like brothers. Well, _Ambarys_ didn't see what the fuss was about. So a few more Nordic souls existed, or didn't exist? What difference did _that_ make? It wasn't as if the dragons were gone. It wasn't as if a few more Nords being eaten or not was going to fix his window. And anyway, what use was a holiday that started at midday, and where no one paid you?

Ambarys brooded on that thought, wiping a dirty cup clean with a rag.

It was a pity the Dragonborn had decided to support a man like Ulfric Stormcloak.

If only the Dragonborn had had more of a cosmopolitan view of the world... if only the Dragonborn had just seen that Ulfric Stormcloak was not a visionary, but a _brute..._ if only the Dragonborn had just picked the _Empire_...

The first cup was clean.

Malthyr plucked it from his fingers, and filled it with matze.

Ambarys selected a second cup, and started cleaning it, too.

"Isn't it great?" Malthyr beamed, "We're all but full, and it's not even evening yet."

Ambarys grunted noncommittally.

Really, it was a pity the Dragonborn _had_ managed to defeat Alduin-- assuming he wasn't lying, that was, because anyone could _say_ they'd been to Sovngarde. If Alduin had just managed to eat the man, the Empire might have stood a fair chance at winning the war, because from the stories he was the sole reason General Tullius was losing it.

“Cheer up,” Malthyr said bracingly, hesitating, drink in hand, “At least once the war's on again, they'll have something to do besides sneering at us. Who knows? Maybe Rolff'll finally sign up this time, and the General'll kill him for us for good.”

If only.

"Get a move on, Malthyr, and deliver the drink."

**Day Seven- Evening**

Ambarys' cornerclub flooded again.

It still smelt awful. It still slapped beneath his feet, creeping into his shoes and squelching ice-cold into his socks. He still needed to shovel the snow from the _outside_ the doorway, so the water could flow down the short flight of stairs and sog the snow and leak beneath the door of the near-abandoned Atheron Residence. He still needed to soak up the dampness from the floor with a filthy cloth that had served the same purpose so often in the past that the once-grey material was all but black.

It still, in short, was not much different to the flooding that had plagued Ambarys Rendar ever since he'd been consigned to this horrible corner of this unwelcoming city.

But.

But this time-- because after ten years of this, Ambarys fancied himself something of an expert-- it was _just_ melting snow, and mud from the street. What stench there was was stale, embedded in Ambarys' walls and his floors from fifteen years of flooding. This time, in short, if Ambarys was not wrong, the sewers had _not_ flooded. It was not Divine Intervention, Ambarys told himself firmly. It was not proof the high elf's god was real either. Real Divine Intervention came in the form of lightning and thunder from the heavens; in the form of earthquakes drastically altering the gradient of the city so that it was the _Nords_ who lived where the sewage gathered; in the form of divine avatars flying down from the heavens and lifting up one's house a good three inches before solidifying into statues of towering stone.

It did not come in the form of ex-Thalmor agents with shovels, nursing black eyes and broken jaws.

They did not _count_.

It wasn't as if stopping the sewers from _one measly flood_ actually changed anything. The moment the ex-Thalmor got his head chopped off, things would return to exactly how bad they'd been before. Ambarys consoled himself with this truth, and slept.

Or rather, he tried to sleep.

Partly, it was the cold.

Partly, it was because Ambarys had not, unlike many of his kin, quite managed to crush his conscience. Not when it came to mer, at least. And his conscience said that while this certainly hadn't been what he'd _meant,_ since the probability of Ulfric actually  _fixing_ anything now the war had resumed in earnest was approximately zero, this attempt to spare Ambarys' Cornerclub from sewage was the best the ex-Thalmor  _could_ do. High elves were a proud lot. Like House Indoril, they did not humble themselves lightly. They did not, on the whole, humble themselves at all. For one to be sinking to this... he had to be desperate.

Ambarys liked the idea in  _theory_ of making other people desperate. In practice, however, it wasn't as fun as he imagined it being. Not when, if one went on technicalities, he was withholding something from someone that he owed them. It made him feel a bit like he was Rolff Stone-Fist, and that left a nasty aftertaste on his tongue.

In short, while he mightn't owe the high elf's god any praises, he probably _did_ owe him his promised interest.

Ambarys groaned, and rolled over, burying his head underneath his pillow.

He wasn't interested.

He _wasn't._

What had made him say yes, he would be, in the first place?

Sometimes, he liked having a conscience to differentiate him from Nords like Ulfric Stormcloak, who very obviously didn't. But at times like now, Ambarys wished consciences were things you could pluck out from your spines like an unwanted page, scrunch up, and burn inside the fireplace until they were as insubstantial as ash salts on the ground.

**Day Nine- Morning**

“You know,” Ambarys said, to the ex-Thalmor, “This isn't what I meant."

"Talos preserve me," the Stormcloak muttered.

Ambarys elected to ignore that. The ex-Thalmor, busy working, did too.

“Oh? The sewage leaked into your hov-- you house, did it?”

There was a slight pause. The ignoble instinct to lie warred once more with Ambarys' conscience.

“It didn't," he admitted, grudgingly, "But my Cornerclub flooded just the same.”

The high elf's brow cleared, and really, Ambarys should have _known_ that this particular high elf wouldn't be sympathetic about his misfortune.

"You could at least pretend to be sorry for me," he pointed out.

"I could," the Altmer agreed, "But why lie?"

Ambarys gritted his teeth, regretting listening to his conscience.

"Rest assured, cousin, were the problem unavoidable, I might feel sorrier for you. But the problem was destined to be from the moment you built your club in a spot with such poor drainage. Had I owned this... _building..._ I would have installed a proper gutter on the roof, and made the entrance face in a direction that did _not_ encourage the prevailing wind to dump snow in drifts outside my front door. I would also have replaced my walls when they started rotting, so that the rot did not spread throughout the whole building. Preferably with something that did not leak."

“I've half a mind to try hitting you, you know,” Ambarys scowled.

“You do not like blood though, so I am sure you will restrain yourself.”

He'd remembered that, had he?

"There are plenty of ways to hit you that  _don't_ involve you bleeding," Ambarys informed him, nastily.

"I referred to _you_ bleeding, cousin, not me."

The Stormcloak snorted. Ambarys looked at him resentfully, and hoped he got himself killed or very seriously injured in whatever attack Commander Galmar took his soldiers out on next. Ambarys dwelt on that thought with malice. If the Nord did get himself injured, and if he did come to Ambarys for aid, would Ambarys give it to him? No. He'd snort  _exactly_ like that Nord had snorted then. Then that Nord would be sorry.

It wasn't fair.

Hadn't that Nord been the one who'd beaten the elf to a pulp? Why was he snorting? Oughtn't they to be hating each other?

He didn't understand Nords. He didn't understand  _this_ elf for liking them either.

"Is that what you wanted me for?" he said resentfully, "So you could sneer at the thought of how easy it would be to beat me? Because if it is, you don't need to clean out the gutters for that. You don't even need to stop at thinking about it, in this town. In this town, a Thalmor could pluck my eyes out, and I'd be fined for screaming."

"Really?" the high elf said.

"Well, I'm fined for objecting to Nords breaking my windows. That's _almost_ the same thing."

"Don't ask," the Stormcloak said. "If you do, he'll tell you. At length."

"I have time," the ex-Thalmor said, dismissing that, "If he's comfortable talking with me while I work, that is."

Ambarys was.

"Though if you intend to stay outside for any great length of time, you should probably put on a coat of some sort. Or, failing that, a pelt. You do have one, I trust? No, I am not being patronising. I am being _selfish._ I am good at that, you will agree. You are shivering already, and you will be of very little use to me if you die of frostbite, or of any one of the numerous fevers that undoubtedly run rampant in this slum."

Ambarys softened slightly. He _was_ cold. The high elf looked cold, too. Maybe he was doing the high elf an injustice. Maybe it was unfair to assume _everyone_ had a decent grasp of what did and did not constitute an acceptable level of social tact, just because he had. Maybe this high elf was just _very_ socially awkward, and wasn't sure how to relate to people he wasn't giving orders to or sneering at?

A moment or two later, Ambarys had left and returned wrapped inside a sturdy coat.

From the hours of six until eight, he filled in his fair-skinned cousin on the tale of his broken window, and, finding him to be a fairly good listener, (because the high elf, while certainly not a _sympathetic_ listener, nevertheless refrained from interrupting him and 'mm'd' at all the right places) Ambarys launched into a rendition of all the horrors of Windhelm's injustice that the Four Corners of the House of Troubles had seen fit to curse him with in the last three weeks. He would have liked to have upped the count to the last three months, or even-- though perhaps that was a bit too ambitious-- the last three years, but the Stormcloak, Azura curse him, announced then that it was time to return the prisoner to his cell.

"I have listened to you. Tomorrow it is your turn to listen to me, Rendar," the high elf said.

The high elf's voice was flat, but there was a question there, Ambarys thought.

"I'm not going to sing anyone's praises until the sewers are fixed," Ambarys said firmly.

"But you will listen."

"... Listening doesn't mean I'll be _convinced."_  

That would have been the end of it, except that a  _look_ happened in the high elf's eyes at those words that was equal parts exhaustion and the purest relief. It was the sort of relief Ambarys might have expected to find on the face of a drowning mer who'd just spotted a potion of waterbreathing; in the eyes of a mer plummeting to certain death from an expired levitation spell, only to discover in some forgotten satchel a potion of slow-falling. It was a look that made him feel wanted, important and  _needed_ all at once.

In short, it was a look that said this elf had  _expectations._ Not just expectations, but the ability to make Ambarys Rendar, who hadn't been wanted or needed by anyone for anything in more than a century, feel like meeting those expectations mattered.

It was a look that terrified him, because whatever this elf was looking for, Ambarys Rendar was very, very sure he didn't have it.


	37. The Disadvantages of Not Being In Jail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Disadvantages of Not Being In Jail

His name, said the swaying, bleary-eyed drunk blocking his path, was Rolff Stone-Fist, and he was-- if Ondolemar was interpreting his words correctly through the mead-soaked haze between them-- here to make it clear to Ondolemar that he felt dark elves ought to live in smelly slums and not have their gutters cleared out unless Nords were getting the same favor.

Had Galmar been half his current age and sported a straggly mustache instead of his grizzled beard, Ondolemar might have said that he and this sturdy roadblock looked rather alike. The question was, did Galmar have a son he allowed to behave so inappropriately, or just a relative  _very_ much his junior?

Auri-El curse the Nord. _One_ Stone-Fist ought to have been enough for any city.

"Move, Nord," Ondolemar ordered.

"No. Not until you start on _our_ gutters first."

Ondolemar breathed deeply, and counted to ten.

"Skyrim's for the Nords. Nords're _better_ than the greyskins. We're stronger. We're much stronger. We don't run from fights. And we..." Rolff groped blindly, before producing, firmly, "We're _better._ We're better than you _goldskins,_ too."

Self-evidently, this particular Nord was not. Equally self-evidently, all pointing that truth out to this belligerent delinquent would get him was a brawl. The question was, at this hour of the morning, with Ambarys Rendar to start convincing before eight that an Aedra just as likely to send him nightmares at the moment as bless him was still worth worshiping, was a brawl really something Ondolemar _wanted?_

"We're better than the lizards too, and the cats. We're better then the prissy Bretons, too."

The Nord was ticking the races of Tamriel off his fingers, one by one.

"Is this normal?" Ondolemar demanded of Cahlad, who was being of no use at all.

"Pretty much," Cahlad shrugged.

Of course it was. Of course.

Auri-El grant him patience.

Ondolemar made to step around the drunkard.

The drunkard side-stepped with more luck than skill, blocking his path.

"I told you, elf. Us first, and  _then_ them."

Ondolemar felt his temper spike dangerously. Was this brat trying to provoke him? Did he  _know_ Ondolemar had had no more than six hours of sleep in as many days, and was nursing a raging headache? Did he know how close he would have been to being _roasted,_ had Ondolemar but been free to cast the fireballs he _wanted_ to at Nords who annoyed him? Did he know how little patience Ondolemar had _left?_

If this was Galmar's son, Galmar and Ondolemar were going to have  _words_.

Ondolemar counted to ten once more. Slowly.

When that did not help, he upped the count to twenty.

"I was under the impression, O Quarrelsome One, that Nords did not object to smelling and stepping in sewage. I was even reliably informed mere days ago that trying to remove the smell made real men soft. And yet, despite that, you tell me now that the whole of Windhelm would benefit from clean gutters?"

"... If the _greyskins_ are getting it, _we_ should too."

1\. 2. 3. 4. 5.

"Remove him, Cahlad. I haven't the time for this."

"I'm not touching the commander's brother."

Craven wretch.

"You think that you deserve to be treated as the Dunmer are, do you?" Ondolemar said, turning back to the Problem before him.

"... We deserve to be treated  _better_ than the Dun... then the greyskins. Because we're Nords. Nords are better than the greyskins."

"Well, if that is how you truly feel, there is more than one spade in Windhelm."

Rolff blinked, frowning.

"Eh?"

"Stop it, elf," Cahlad said, apparently of quicker understanding, "The commander's brother is  _not_ raking sewage."

Ondolemar ignored him. Stepping forward, he offered up the spade, handle-first.

"What say you? Here, you see a shovel that I would welcome the chance not to use. Bear witness to my kindness. Perceive that I will not even put you to the trouble of finding your own tool yourself. If you truly believe that your kin would be happier having gutters to empty their chamberpots into at night instead of the open streets, far be it from me to stop you from improving the lives of your elders."

There was a short silence.

"M'brother told me not t'do  _anything_ a goldskin tells me to. The Thalmor're bastards."

Lazy, irritating, blustering, _useless--_

"A very sensible approach for you to take," Ondolemar agreed, with dangerous sweetness, and maybe, just maybe, he _was_  deliberately baiting a drunk Nord who could not yet be twenty, but on the other hand, Ondolemar had a headache and this brat _deserved_ to be baited for making it worse. "Your brother speaks wisely. Doing what a Thalmor tells you to is always a bad idea for any Nord. Rarely do your kind manage to master the sort of obsequious servitude that you, as a _lesser_ race," Rolff bristled, scowling, "are expected to display in the presence of your _betters."_ Rolff's face flushed an interesting shade of puce. "Inevitably, any attempt to obey on your part would end in disaster. Painful disaster, in fact, since even one of the _clerks_ of Northwatch would have not the slightest difficulty arresting you in your present condition."

Rolff, satisfyingly, was livid.

He was... very much like his brother, with that temper.

Had Galmar been so young once, Ondolemar wondered, in the Great War?

Had the Thalmor then found him as easy to provoke as Ondolemar was finding Rolff now?

Probably.

"Take it back, elf! I could take out ten of you yellow-skinned monsters with my eyes shut!"

Ondolemar allowed his eyes to drift disdainfully from the heels of Rolff's booted feet to the top of his leather-capped head.

"In your current condition, you would have trouble, I think, hitting the back of a sleeping mudcrab."

That did the job nicely, it turned out, because Rolff came on, swinging wildly. Cahlad failed to intervene. He failed even to object verbally. Typical, Ondolemar thought cynically, that brawling was perfectly acceptable in Windhelm, where encouraging someone to do something that was actually _useful_ like cleaning out a gutter was actively frowned upon.

He did not bother dodging.

Dodging was a thing reserved for blows that came within one foot of one's person.

"I am proved right, I think."

"You're not," Rolff said, scowling, "That was a  _warning._ I  _meant_ to miss. The next time--,"

"A bet on it then, if you are that sure. If I win, _you_ shovel out the sewers for me."

"Elf--," Cahlad started, warningly.

Ondolemar ignored him.

"If you win, however, I will clean out the gutters of the street wherever you live, as well as those of the Grey Quarter."

There was a slight pause.

"... I don't have a home," Rolff said, sullenly.

That was-- unexpected.

Ondolemar frowned sharply, feeling-- _something,_ because surely the boy couldn't be serious?

He was a _Stone-Fist._ He was Galmar's little brother. No, Ondolemar did not like him, but surely this brawling drunkenness was something Galmar did like? Surely  _one_ of the sprawling mansions in Ulfric Stormcloak's city belonged to Ulfric Stormcloak's closest friend? He knew little of Ulfric Stormcloak, true, save that the man was grossly unprofessional, liked Talos, and was a lot harder to hate than Ondolemar sometimes _wanted_ him to be, but surely he was not a man who consigned commanders and their families to wandering the slums at night? Surely Galmar himself would not have forced his younger brother out into this freezing cold?

This... did not fit.

"It doesn't matter though, because Candlehearth Hall is _better_ than a home," Rolff said, scowling and flushing darkly with the air of someone to whom anything remotely resembling pity was about as pleasant as a mouthful of nightshade, "I don't _need_ a home. And you should be grateful I don't, because even if I _did_ have one, you would have lost your bet  _anyway._ Now c'mon, elf. Fight me, you lily-livered milkdrinker, if you've the stomach for it! You'll soon learn to fear the fist of a true son of Skyrim!"

"Your insults lack imagination," Ondolemar informed him.

"No they don't."

"Yes, they do."

"What's the matter, elf? Hen-hearted as well as beetle-spirited?"

"Beetles have more spirit than you know. Beneath the ground, there are some of whom the mere _memory_ would leave you screaming."

"... Eh?"

"Chaurus. I advise against looking for them, by the way. You would die the moment you found them, assuming you survived long enough to do even that, and your brother would undoubtedly kill me."

Silence.

"... Y'know my brother?" Rolff said, grudgingly.

"I do. Like you, he enjoys the idea of beating me senseless. _Unlike_ you, however, he is actually capable of it."

"I'm capable of it," Rolff said, staunchly. "I'm strong, too, and when I'm old enough, I'm going to join the Stormcloaks. Then I'll be _just_ like him."

The look of little brothers who idolised their older siblings was universal, it seemed. Wretched Nords, and their accursed ability to make him think of things he did not want to think about at times like now. And what age was this brat, anyway, if Ulfric accepted boys as young as 15?

"Coward," Rolff taunted, hopefully.

Ondolemar glared at him.

He wanted a fight that badly, did he?

Well, why not?

There was no need to feel guilty.

There was no need to complicate things.

Yes, he'd baited him, but the youth had also been _warned._  Sort of. And if he was old enough to grow a mustache, to drink and to wander the streets at this hour, and sober enough to notice things like reluctant pity, he was probably a much fairer target than Ondolemar thought he was. Still not fair, perhaps, but _fairer._ And so, philosophically, Ondolemar passed his spade to Cahlad, raised his fists, and applied himself to the ignoble task of beating Galmar's drunk little brother senseless.

\--O--

Ambarys Rendar was having a good morning.

The sun was rising, nothing had flooded, and Rolff Stone-Fist was currently being beaten senseless.

Ambarys chewed on some beef jerky, watching.

No, he didn't like blood, and no, it wasn't fair that the Stormcloak watching didn't seem to be charging the _high elf_ for assault the way he would certainly have charged Ambarys for doing the exact same thing, but on the other hand, Rolff Stone-Fist was winded and bleeding rather heavily at the nose, and at the moment, Ambarys wasn't feeling queasy at all. Actually, at the moment, he felt better than he had done in weeks.

He ought to have known, really, that in Windhelm, happiness wasn't a thing that dark elves were allowed to enjoy for long.

He ought to have _known_ the gods would not allow his joy to last.

He ought to have, but it still took him a moment too long to realise exactly what it  _meant_ when a shadow fleetingly covered the rising sun.

Then his entire building shook as something huge and heavy landed clumsily on top of it. Ambarys froze, whimpering, and _please Azura, please Mara, please Saint Vivec, not now, not my roof, not my home, please let this be a nightmare--_

There was a roar, and Ambarys' building shook again. Above him, a dark thing that looked a _lot_  more like a talon than Ambarys wanted it to poked through Ambarys' roof.

And outside, the world exploded in a blaze of fire.

Azura, Mara, and Vivec had not obliged.

Now of all times and today of all days, a dragon had decided it wanted to land on Ambarys' roof, and attack Windhelm.

\--O--

Ondolemar did not like dragons.

He did not like them even when he was dressed for combat, wielding a mace, and was  _not_ wearing magic-blocking bracers.

As matters stood, the moment the earth had shaken beneath his feet and the dragon's shadow had crossed the sun, Ondolemar had done what any sensible mer would have done. He'd consigned his brawl to Oblivion and dived for the nearest shelter, which happened to be directly beneath the stone shelf that overhung the entrance to the New Gnisis Cornerclub.

The same could not be said of Cahlad, whose armor was smoldering, and who was releasing shot after inaccurate shot at the beast, and, from the sound of it, mainly succeeding in peppering Ambarys' roof with his feathered shafts. The same could also not be said of Rolff, who appeared to think-- possibly it was the mead-- that an iron dagger was a good choice of weapon with which to run up and down the main-street bellowing challenges to the rooftops-- an exercise in stupidity that lasted as long as it took for the Nord to lose his footing running up and down the icy stairs, and knock himself unconscious.

"You could hide with me, you know," Ondolemar pointed out, wondering if he really cared _enough_ about whether or not Rolff Stone-Fist was charred to a crisp in the crossfire of the dragon's next sweep to do something about it.

"True Nords don't run from fights," Cahlad said gamely, releasing another arrow.

He did care enough, Ondolemar discovered.  _Only_ because Galmar's arm was disgustingly warm, and this brat was Galmar's brother.

"Remind me, then," Ondolemar said, snagging Rolff's ankles and dragging him under cover, "just how was it that your beloved Jarl ended up in Tullius' hands at Helgen?"

"Shut up, elf."

Another blast of fire swept the street. The snow melted. The flags caught fire.

Perhaps the dragon agreed with Cahlad.

"If you ignored the dragon, it might well leave," Ondolemar gritted out, when the steam cleared.

"Leave us, maybe, but he'd just burn something else. Something that wasn't capable of defending itself."

"You think _we_ are?"

" _I_ am."

If Cahlad was capable of fending off a dragon alone, Ondolemar was the Dragonborn.

The brat was still clutching his iron dagger, so Ondolemar appropriated it, and set to work on his restraints.

"Stop that," Cahlad snapped.

Ondolemar ignored him.

"Don't make me waste any arrows on you, elf! I've few enough left as it is."

"That would be unwise of you. I have Rolff, and I have no ethics. I will not hesitate to use him as a shield."

Cahlad sent him a filthy look and then cursed, narrowly dodging another jet of flame.

There was a sharp pain as the dagger slipped. Ondolemar swore, and turned his attention back to what the knife was doing.

"Do _try_ not to die, won't you?"

"I'll feast either way, in the mess hall or Sovngarde. It makes no difference to me."

Wretched Nords and their wretched heroics.

The knife sliced through the last of the left bracer. The Nord muttered something about Talos, then, that Ondolemar chose to ignore. 

He turned his attention, more clumsily, to the right.

"When I'm done with the dragon, elf, you're next," Cahlad promised distractedly.

"Myself, before the commander's comatose brother? You flatter me."

"Shor's bones, elf, just  _put the damn bracers back on!_ "

The dragon circled again, overhead. Alarms were sounding now in the distance. 

The ground shook as the dragon landed once more.

Cahlad was panting now, his skin burnt badly enough that the visible parts of it had blistered. His quiver had just three arrows left, which-- really the man was doing well even having that many, and he was very, _very_ lucky that Sifnar Ironkettle, whoever he was, happened to be an acceptable cook, and that Ondolemar happened to enjoy having an edible breakfast, because otherwise Ondolemar certainly would not have been stepping out from beneath the protection of the stone shelf above him, and would _definitely_ not have launched a bolt of lightning directly at the dragon's eye.

The dragon turned, glaring in a way that reminded Ondolemar rather a lot of Akatosh. A family resemblance, perhaps.

Apparently, dragons disliked magic more than they did arrows.

 _Auri-El preserve me,_ Ondolemar thought grimly, readying a ward, because if Auri-El didn't want to, now was his Lord's chance to summon him to answer for his actions personally in Aetherius.

\--O-- 

"Sir!" a voice said, panicked, cutting through an uneasy dream of High Hrothgar, and of Master Arngeir's disappointed gaze, "Sir! There's a dragon attacking the city!"

A bucket of icy water could not have woken him more effectively.

Ulfric jolted bolt upright, dream forgotten, tossing the blankets aside and reaching for his sword.

"Where?" he demanded, "What sort?"

"Sort, sir?"

"Frost, or fire?" Ulfric clarified, leaving his chambers at a sprint, making for the throne room... the courtyard doors...

"Fire, and just the Grey Quarter at the moment, Jarl Ulfric," the Nord said, keeping pace. Hemdir was his name, if Ulfric remembered correctly. A recruit of six months, once a farmer, who'd lost his lands to the Empire's taxes. A sad tale, like too many in these dark times. "But it's circling," Hemdir added, "And knowing the lizards, it'll soon move onto other parts of the city. The guards aren't sure if they should be entering the Grey Quarter to hunt the beast, or taking up formations in the main courtyard...?"

The palace gates opened for them, and there was the beast, flying high, screaming fire with words Ulfric would never have the power to pronounce himself.

Ulfric's instinct was to say the courtyard.

Windhelm slept. Dragons chased the source of arrows, when there were no softer targets to be had. He'd not set foot in the Grey Quarter for eight years, but if Brunwulf Free-Winter was to be believed, if enough flame struck the Grey Quarter to melt the ice that covered it, the whole place would likely go up in flames. Best to draw the beast away from there, to somewhere where its fires would be wasted on impregnable stone.

At that moment, however, Galmar emerged.

"Jarl Ulfric," he started, and then stopped, tugging at the end of his beard.

The dragon circled above the city. Stormcloaks released volleys of arrows at it.

Ulfric, torn between waiting for the beast to land to lead the charge, or picking up a bow himself, glanced at him.

"What is it?"

"My brother. He's... that is, I think the lad's down in the Grey Quarter."

"What in _Kyne's name_ is he doing down there at _this_ hour?"

There was another shriek of fire.

Galmar twitched slightly.

"He goes down to taunt the greyskins of an evening. Nonsense, most of it. He's usually back in Candlehearth come morning, but..."

But.

Ulfric pinched his brow.

"He's a good lad, but he gets drunk sometimes," Galmar said, in a way that suggested that 'sometimes' was more than sometimes, most times. "I'm worried about him. Your Thalmor's a problem, too, if he's down there."

"He is not  _my_ Thalmor," Ulfric said, automatically.

 _"The_ Thalmor, then. But unless the lizards have found a target, they're usually happy enough flying hard in the direction of whatever is pelting arrows at them. But the way it's moving now..." The dragon circled once more overhead, and launched another jet of flame beneath it, before perching precariously on top of some poor devil's roof and staring with malice down at something, or someone, in a street too narrow for it to fit in, "Whether it's a goldskin, a greyskin or my brother it's found, I don't think that beast is even remotely interested in us."

From the look of it, Galmar was right.

Ulfric swore. Fluently.

"To the Grey Quarter," he ordered, _"Now."_


	38. The (Not So) Noble Art of Dragonslaying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> (Also, quick A/N: Let me just say now that I am so sorry in advance for any delays. I started a full-time course this week, and I'm really worried about how much it is going to eat my time ;-;)

## The (Not So) Noble Art of Dragonslaying

Exactly three days after the Unfortunate Incident at Helgen, a flyer had been sent to every Thalmor in Skyrim, marked 'Urgent' in the First Emissary's hand, and detailing What and What Not To Do when attacked unexpectedly by a dragon.

At the time, Ondolemar remembered mainly being both daunted and reluctantly impressed that Elenwen had managed to come up with a three-page-long standard operating procedure in under seventy-two hours. Now, however...

Now, Ondolemar found himself wishing he'd read more of it than just  _do not engage._

Elenwen was a clever mer.

Burried somewhere in the fine-print of that paper had probably been some very good ideas about how best not to die when one was being blasted by flames that smelled of sulfur and iron and burnt Nord, and that made one think of cages, Oblivion and being roasted a lot more than one  _wanted_ to when the only thing stopping one from being burned alive right now was a slender ward that required solid concentration to maintain, and that threatened now to flicker out of existence altogether.

 _Breathe,_ Ondolemar reminded himself, grimly. _Breathe._

Ten years with the mind healers. Ten years.

_You are stronger, now._

_You are well._

_Auri-El, your father, stands with you._

_You lived then._

_Memory alone will not bring you to your knees._

\--O--

Ambarys Rendar was not happy. He was not happy about a lot of things for a lot of very obvious reasons, but specifically, at this exact moment, what he was not happy about was the ominous shattering noise from outside that sounded a _lot_ like the sound of one of Ambarys' roofing tiles making lethal contact with the ground.

It was the seventh such tile that had shattered against the ground, and Ambarys had felt the same, painful wrench in his gut for each of the six tiles that had preceded it. Tiles were expensive to replace. Not only that, but if dragons were going to make a habit of perching on Ambarys' roof--

Another clatter.

Ambarys let out a pained moan. 

He liked his roof. It had been a _nice_ roof. It had just not been _designed_ with the thought of dragons in mind. It had been designed to support the weight of a lot of snow, and a few-dozen thieves, yes, but not an iron-boned monstrosity that had to weigh more than five tons. If nothing stopped the horrible beast, Ambarys was very soon not going to have a roof at all.

In a fairer world, there would have been more than one guard shooting the dragon, and that single guard would not have been half-dead.

In a fairer world, the ex-Thalmor would have known some nastier spells than lightning bolts to shoot at the beast.

This was Windhelm, though, which meant that if Ambarys wanted to stop his roof from caving in, Ambarys was going to have to do something about it himself.

On the second floor of the New Gnisis Cornerclub was an old legionnaire’s outfit and an Imperial flag. Ambarys had never actually fought in the legion-- he'd bought them dirt-cheap from Niranye, who wouldn't say how she'd got them-- but he was fairly sure that fighting for the legion wouldn't have been a difficult thing to do, and sometimes he liked to imagine what things might have been like if he _had_.

Now was one of those times.

Which was why Amarys Rendar was creeping downstairs and retrieving his broadsword and his shield from their place of pride on the rotting table Ambary's grandfather had made for him when he'd been a stripling of fifty, and was creeping back upstairs again with malicious intent. No, he could not _reach_ the talon responsible for ruining his roof but if he dragged the bed just so-- Malthyr mumbled a protest in his sleep and snored on-- if he stood a table on it, and the chair on top of that--

Yes, Ambarys thought grimly, perched precariously atop his unstable tower.

Yes, this would do nicely.

Lifting up his blade (which was actually a lot heavier than it looked) Ambarys asked Azura, Saint Vivec, and Akatosh to bless him, and swung with all his might at the offending appendage.

Three things happened.

There was a sick splat, as a black, bony claw rolled across the floor, oozing blood.

The dragon _roared_ with rage, and emptied a lungfull of fire straight beneath its feet.

And Ambarys, queasily watching the rolling piece of sinew and bone paint a crimson stripe on his floorboards, felt the world tilt dangerously beneath him as he promptly, embarrassingly, fainted.

\--O--

Ondolemar had not thought matters were _too_ bad, relatively speaking. Relative to being locked inside a cage in Oblivion, anyway, watching parts of poor Aurionwe-- fortunately already dead-- being cut off and eaten by a Dremora. Compared to that, he was really surviving quite well.

Then the dragon had lost interest in him entirely, and set fire to Ambarys' rooftop instead, which,  _damn the wretched lizard to Oblivion._

A plume of smoke began to climb sullenly into the sky.

Beside him, Cahlad swore.

“Tell me you have a key to that building,” Ondolemar said flatly.

"..."

Well, damn.

Ondolemar set his shoulder against the door and shoved.

"Stop that," Cahlad snapped.

"That dragon is  _setting fire to the roof_. Do you not see the slightest need to fetch help, or even a bucket of  _water_?"

"It's _trying_ to set fire, elf. There's too much snow for it to work. If Rendar was in trouble, you'd hear him ten miles away. The dragon's just..." Cahlad trailed off.

"When even  _you_ are not convinced by your own logic, it is a sure sign that your logic is  _wrong,_ " Ondolemar said, giving the door another shove, "And if he dies because _you_ wouldn't let me rescue him from a burning building because it wasn't eight in the morning, know that I _will_ turn you inside out and use your innards as boot laces."

"You really think you could stomach the smell?" Cahlad said.

Ondolemar sent him a dirty look, and switched tactics.

Breathe. Think. Focus.

An iron dagger to the hinges would do him more favors than raw strength.

Or at least it would have, if Ambarys' hinges hadn't been fairly solidly rusted in place.

Ondolemar cursed, fluently, in Daedric.

Above them, there was another gush of fire.

"Move, elf," Cahlad said, setting his shoulder against the door.

A moment later, it gave way with a crash.

"... I loosened it for you," Ondolemar said.

"Whatever, elf," Cahlad said, and charged into the building.

He did not lead for long. It was a known truth that Altmer were the fastest runners in Tamriel, when they chose to be. Ondolemar was on the second floor before Cahlad was on the second stair, and he was not an expert, but he did not think it was a _good_ sign when _that much smoke_ was filling a building with this many holes, and… was that the Empire's flag hanging proudly there on the wall?

“You should be outside, elf,” Cahlad coughed, covering his mouth with one arm, “This building's so rotten the whole thing's like as not to collapse.”

“Worry about the sheer volume of alcohol on the ground floor that will explode if even one _tenth_ of the fire the beast is breathing gets down here, not the ceiling collapsing,” Ondolemar snapped, half-way up the rickety steps to the third floor, “If Rendar has even one tenth of what the Palace of the Kings seems to--,”

Cahlad paled and swore.

“And since you are a lot more injured than I am, Cahlad, I will get the Dunmer out, and _you_ will go to wherever water and aid are kept in this wretched city, and fetch some."

"I don't take orders from Thalmor."

The dragon roared again. The smoke thickened.

Ondolemar gave up, and climbed the rickety stairs, and-- ah. There was the dragon, glaring at him through a hole two-feet wide.

Unnerving, to see it this close.

Ondolemar summoned a ward, and advanced.

Through the smoke, he could make out two figures. One Dunmer, with earmuffs, lay on the bed. Ambarys lay on the floor, his foot twisted underneath a sturdy table. Neither of them moved, and both, disturbingly, looked to have taken as much of a front-on hit from the dragon as the hole in the roof above them allowed. The unknown Dunmner's chest smoked, and Ambarys' face was singed worryingly black, and--

_Be alive. Be alive. Be alive._

They were.

A relief. More than a relief.

"Get up," Ondolemar commanded, shoving Ambarys' shoulder.

Ambarys head lolled weakly. The other Dunmer also failed to move. In fact, Ondolemar thought, he looked rather like he'd been hit over the head with a shield. _Ambarys'_ shield.

"Auri-El preserve me from fools," Ondolemar muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Cahlad glanced uneasily above them.

"We need to shift them, elf. Get moving. That thing is going to blast us again any second, and I don't fancy my chances trying to stab his eyeball through the roof with a claymore."

That was fair. Ondolemar lifted the table off Ambarys' leg, and really, for a mer who complained as much and slept as little as Ambarys seemed to, Ambarys was unfairly heavy. Oh well. Matters could have been worse. At least Ondolemar wasn't stuck trying to lift both of them, and if he plopped Ambarys down beside Rolff Stone-Fist a bit more clumsily than he'd meant to, at least he'd managed to do it  _without_ giving Ambarys a case of minor concussion, which was more than could be said for Cahlad.

"Help," Ondolemar prodded the man, when the door to the Cornerclub was safely closed behind them. "Fetch it. Now. I guarantee you that if your burns are treated and you have a quiver of arrows with which to shoot me down, I am far less likely to escape from you than now."

"If you run--,"

"I will not. You have my word."

Oddly, that... actually seemed to work, because Cahlad nodded, as if Ondolemar had sworn an oath he'd have felt the slightest qualm about breaking, and was running now-- well, stumbling, but it was the thought that counted-- up the street in the direction of the Palace of the Kings. And then, because he was not an idiot, Ondolemar sat down, glaring at nothing and silently _willing_ the dragon not to see him, to tire of burning nothing, and go home.

It was about then-- of course it was-- that a furious roar announced the arrival of Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, of Windhelm.

\--O--

When Ulfric rounded the corner with Galmar, he saw--

Extraordinarily little, actually, because the dragon was scrabbling at a roof in a manner akin to a cat hunting a mouse, and the Thalmor appeared to be just sitting there, skulking under a shelf of stone, looking sooty but unharmed, and-- was that Rolff Stone-Fist behind that pillar, prone on the ground?

Talos willing, the boy was just dead-drunk.

Ulfric had no desire to bury children this day.

"Damn fool," Galmar muttered, worried.

"At fourteen, which of us was not?"

Arrows whistled overhead, closer now. Good. The men were taking up their positions.

Ulfric waited until the beast launched itself into the air to circle above the city to advance towards the Thalmor. The _weary-_ looking Thalmor, Ulfric thought, frowning, and later, Ulfric would have the time to ponder questions like why it mattered that this particular high elf was walking around with haggard skin and bruised eyes.

"Useful," "tool," and "informant," were _good,_ but even they could only stretched so far.

"Tell me that somewhere within those voluminous furs, you are concealing a bow," the Thalmor said, the moment Ulfric was near enough to hear him, jarring him from this un-Nordic train of thought.

Snide viper.

Galmar, a few paces ahead, had knelt and was reaching for Rolff's neck. A crease or two smoothed between his eyebrows a moment later; it looked like the boy was alive after all.

"No?" the elf said, "A crossbow? A throwing dagger?"

"Our goal is to lure the beast back to the palace, and finish it there. With blades," Ulfric added, firmly.

"How very... _you,"_ the Thalmor said.

There was a short pause.

"Will you be fighting or hiding, elf?" Ulfric said bluntly.

The elf's brows pinched together.

"I have that choice, do I?"

"You do when a dragon is attacking my city. Your cell or a sword, elf. Pick, and cooperate."

"Seeing that at the moment, I am short both on suicidal impulses and--,"

There was a roar of wind overhead, and the groan of iron and wooden supports as the dragon landed once more, this time on the roof on the opposite side of the street, with an air that was almost... smug. Well, that look wouldn't last. Ulfric had lived through Alduin's fires at Helgen. It would take more than dragonfire to fell _him._

The Thalmor did not share his confidence, it seemed, because the elf had stood, both hands flung up before him in a shielding gesture, and Ulfric had one moment to wonder how much the elf's brain had rotted in prison to think a pair of _hands_ were going to protect his face before a shimmering blue light sprang up from beneath the elf's golden fingers, and Ulfric had a sword at his neck before he realised that, no, that was not lightning. That was not directed at him at all. That was the sort of ward Master Arngeir had once failed to teach Ulfric as a lad on a regular basis, and the dragonfire was being sucked into it like water into a dry towel.

Behind him, Galmar had his axe at the elf's back.

"I would appreciate it," the elf said, tightly, "if you did not impale me."

"I would appreciate it if you would stop slipping through your restraints like a damned eel," Ulfric gritted out.

"I was under the _impression_ that you did not mind me fighting with real weapons when dragons were assailing this ice-heap."

" _I_ was under the impression, elf, that your accursed spells were as accessible to you as Hammerfell."

The elf sent him a filthy look and then cursed as his ward flickered and his sleeve began to smoke, turning back to the task of maintaining it, and-- by Talos, it had been but a moment Ulfric had felt it, but the heat of that beast was  _scorching._  In front of the ward, the snow was skipping being liquidised, and melting into pure steam.

A minute, perhaps, the column of fire lasted. Then it was gone, and the dragon circled once more.

"If you are his target, you are coming with me to the courtyard," Ulfric said grimly.

"You liked not being burned to a crisp, did you?"

Maybe, but if he had, Ulfric certainly wasn't going to admit it.

He did lower his sword though.

"Think, elf. That building--,"

"Rendar's Cornerclub."

"Rendar's Cornerclub, then, is smoking already. Another hour of that, and Windhelm will be a second Helgen. Come with me willingly, or come by force. The choice is yours. But while I am her Jarl, Windhelm _will not_ become a smoking ruin."

"Touching. But I am not leaving without Rendar."

"Then take him with you," Ulfric said impatiently.

Talos knew Galmar had already shouldered Rolff's body.

"I might point out that logically, given that  _I_ need two free hands for any ward I cast to take effect instantly,  _you_ should be the one carrying him. Unless you object to touching a Dunmer, that is, but if that is your objection,  _you_ are bringing up the rear, and _you_ are being roasted first."

"I am the Jarl of this city, elf," Ulfric reminded the Thalmor, temper flaring.

The elf muttered something in a tongue Ulfric did not recognise, stooped, and lifted Rendar, two or three shades paler than his usual gold.

Sick, a treacherous voice reminded Ulfric. Sick, starved, and favored, for some unknown reason, by three of the Divines.

"Give him to me," Ulfric said, abruptly, ignoring the startled look that flickered across the elf's face. "I'll cart him to the palace gates. But you had best keep your word, elf. If even _one hair_ on my furs is singed--,"

"You'll drop him, charge the dragon, and do your best to get yourself swallowed, comforted in the knowledge that yours will be a heroic death of which every bard in Skyrim will sing-- _except,_ perhaps, poor Lurbuk, who will merely _try_ ," the elf finished for him, soothingly, and that hadn't been what Ulfric had meant, not at all, but on the other hand-- 

"To the courtyard," Ulfric reminded him, shouldering Rendar.

"To the courtyard," the elf agreed, passing a hand across his brow.

It wasn't as steady as it should have been.

"I am overburdened already, elf. If you faint, I will not be carrying you," Ulfric warned him.

"Rot in Oblivion," the elf said, with weary scorn, but he did move then, retreating back up the narrow street towards the Palace of the Kings.

Ulfric led the way, watching the sky, and told himself that the tiny pinprick of relief he felt was solely due to the fact that the dragon continued to circle above them, and in a yard or two would be successfully lured from the Grey Quarter for good.

\--O--

Three hours, three thousand arrows, and no dead Stormcloaks later, the dragon was dead.

The only question was, Ulfric thought, giving the beast's corpse an experimental nudge with his boot, how in Oblivion did one go about removing the wretched thing from in front of the palace gates? It was all very well for Einar. When he killed them, the things politely stripped themselves of flesh, scale and fat, leaving only a thin skeleton of bone, easily carted off to be ground up, and plowed back into the soil or sold. _This_ dragon showed no inclination to do anything of the sort.

"At least on the positive side, we've more of its hide left than Einar tends to. If we sell the scales, we might even manage to pay for the arrows we wasted on killing it," Galmar said cheerfully, popping a dislocated shoulder back into its socket, "And who knows? With any luck, the damn thing's flesh may well be edible."

\--O--

_To the First Emmissary,_

_You said I could keep gettin paid like Gissur was if I told you stuff, so here's some stuff. There's a rumor goin bout Windhelm that a ~~goldsk~~ that a high elf's been helpin Jarl Ulfric kill a dragon. He's a Thalmor, so I thought you'd want to know._

_Also, he's hanging around the greyskins,_

_Lodrik._


	39. In Which Ambarys Makes A Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## In Which Ambarys Makes A Deal

Ambarys woke feeling sick, sore, and disoriented, lying on Malthyr's bed staring up at the noonday sun through a hole in his ceiling.

Malthyr was sitting in a rickety chair with a knife and a log of wood, making shingles. There was a lump on his head as big as Ambarys' fist, and one eye was swollen shut. He also seemed to be explaining what he was doing to a high elf sitting next to him who, for some reason, looked a _lot_ like the ex-Thalmor, which, no, not for 'some reason.' He _looked_ like the ex-Thalmor because he _was_ the ex-Thalmor, and suddenly the morning's events came rushing back and  _dragon falling smoke blood--_

The ex-Thalmor stood.

"If you are looking for the dragon, cousin, your ever-valiant Jarl has already slain it for you."

"I'm not," Ambarys lied, trying to sit up too and, no, that was a bad move because his leg _hurt_.

Sprained? Ambarys would have to hope so.

He couldn't afford the time off to mend a broken bone.

"And he's _not_ ever valiant," he said, more to distract himself than anything else. "That Nord--," _Was a racist fetcher who o_ _ften assigned the ex-Thalmor guards, which were probably in earshot,_ "Is only valiant if a _Nord_ is in danger. That's _selective_  valiance and that is as far from being _really_  valiant as matze is from being Cyrodiilic brandy. I could set myself alight, and he wouldn't lose one wink of sleep over it."

"He would, actually. He expressed some concern that a fire in the Grey Quarter would spread to the rest of Windhelm, I recall."

"I bet you were a bully as a child," Ambarys said, nastily.

"I was certainly clever enough to rely on force, threats and bribes instead of hard work to achieve my goals." 

Ambarys glared at him impotently.

"You shouldn't get agitated," Malthyr said, worried, pausing in splitting another shingle.

"True. True. Console yourself, and calm yourself, with the thought of the many Dunmer who yet live who would have slain themselves in protest of the conditions here, had Ulfric not been so indifferent," the Altmer said, sounding like that was meant to be comforting.

Ambarys glared at him.

"Why are you even _here?"_

"Because Nords, in Windhelm, are a forgetful race. Help them slay a dragon, and even an ex-Thalmor officer is allowed to visit a dark elf in broad daylight. Of course, it probably does help that, as you say, if I did kill you, they would not lose sleep over your demise."

"... You helped them kill the dragon?" Ambarys said, choosing to ignore that insult for now.

"I did."

"With those measly little lightning bolts?"

"My lightning is neither 'measly' nor 'little'. It is a _highly_ destructive force, but no, I did not use it. Nords are a dull race, and have a habit of stepping in front of spells not intended for them, and then blaming me for the inevitable results of their own stupidity. Thus, I used a mace, and made sure Galmar was closer to the dragon's jaw than I was. I brushed through tolerably well, I think."

Double standards, that's what it was.

Ambarys could not be given five gold pieces for his window, but the Altmer could be given the use of a whole steel mace?

Unfair. Unjust. Unethical.

"You should not look too peeved, cousin. Your Jarl, for all that he despises you, _did_ carry you to safety from this street on his own back."

"Ulfric Stormcloak came to the Grey Quarter?"

"Mm."

"Ulfric Stormcloak touched me?"

"Under protest, but yes. He did."

That... that wasn't how Ulfric Stormcloak, a truly black-hearted tyrant, was supposed to behave. That...

"Why?"

"I may or may not have insisted. He may or may not have wanted a warding spell between himself and the dragon's breath. Mutual benefit, you understand. I do need you, after all, to convert at least in part to the service of my Lord."

Ambarys swallowed. Twitched, and stifled a moan as a wave of pain rattled down his leg.

_Don't move don't cry don't move--_

It passed.

"I notice I was left," Malthyr said, to the shingle.

"Obviously. Only one mer could be carried. You were less useful to me."

Malthyr mumbled something that sounded like  _n'wah._

"Engage to worship my Lord also, and I will engage that next time I face such a choice, I will at least toss a coin to decide between you."

"If your _'Lord'_ is as much of a fetcher as you are, I'd sooner worship Sheogorath."

"You would regret it when you died. I am informed that the Shivering Isles are not welcoming to mortals."

Malthyr, about as religious as Ambarys was, made a rude gesture with one hand, and kept working.

Ambarys stewed.

So, Ulfric Stormcloak, his high-and-mightiness who never looked at a greyskin without sneering at them, had carried him heroically to safety, had he? To show off, probably. To rub it in that the dark elves couldn't even fight their  _own_ battles properly. Well, Ambarys wasn't grateful. His leg was sore. No one had healed it. His roof had holes, and he hadn't been given so much as a scale of the carcass to sell despite striking it just as bravely as the ex-Thalmor had.

And just why _did_ Ulfric even trust this mer enough to let him use weapons and wander around freely anyway? It couldn't _just_ be that he'd defected, surely? It could not even be that Ulfric just didn't care if a Dunmer or two died, because there were many Nords in Windhelm someone who got loose in the Grey Quarter could kill  _too._

Something else, then.

Something religious, because that was all the Stormcloaks and the Thalmor  _did_ have in common, so far as Ambarys could work out: That both of them thought that killing innocent people for their gods was not the act of an extremist, but a Divine-sent duty.

_I do need you, after all, to convert at least in part to the service of my Lord._

"Who is your god?" Ambarys said, at last.

If he was a god who wanted Ambarys to kill anyone, Ambarys was not having a bar of him.

The ex-Thalmor's face shifted.

Immediate, that change, from caustic amusement to something... softer, warmer, almost _fond._

"My god-- or rather, the chief of my pantheon-- is Auri-El."

Akatosh, Ambarys mentally substituted. And then _un_ substituted, actually, because Auri-El, the ex-Thalmor went on to say, as if reading Ambarys' mind, was as close to being Akatosh as Shor was to being Lorkhan. He was also, apparently, Ambarys Rendar's ancestor. Moreover, he was not just _an_ ancestor, but the progenitor of all the merish races; the ancestor who was as distant as you got before you started counting photons, which Ambarys was perfectly happy to not do.

“ _Isn't_ Shor just another name for Lorkhan?” Ambarys said plaintively, lost.

“No. Shor is Shor, and Lorkhan is Lorkhan. They split the moment the conflicting faith of their followers was too great for them to endure, and when they did, both entities had existed since before Mundus was formed. Time, one gathers, is rather more fluid for them than for us."

"..."

"If it comforts you, you do not need to understand. I do not understand either, which is, perhaps, why I am not very good at explaining such principles. A priest would have more skill at such things... The point is that they are different beings who simply _happen_ to share the same source of power. Think of your Tribunal if it helps. Vivec was not Sotha Sil, and Sotha Sil was not Almalexia. But when Lorkhan's heart fell, that was the end of all three of them.”

"Not Vivec."

"I refer to their _power,_ not their life."

Ambarys wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Still, he supposed it made a certain amount of sense.

Sort of.

"Is there a better reason than ancestor-worship you're building up to for wanting us to serve your god, by any chance?" Malthyr said, bluntly. "Because no offense, but it's been a long time since the Dunmer have strictly worshiped our ancestors and I don't see why we should start worshiping this one now, even if he _is_ our progenitor.”

"You could show some gratitude, perhaps. He did, after all, spend his power creating this plane," the high elf said silkily.

"It hasn't been so kind to me that I feel like I owe him favors for landing me here."

"He has been neither kind nor unkind. How can he be, to those who do not serve him? Unlike the Daedra, who meddle freely, the Aedra require that we acknowledge their existence before they can grant us favors. Your kind have not done that since the Chimer left Alinor."

"... So the Daedra are stronger," Ambarys said.

"Did Auri-El triumph during the Oblivion Crisis, or did Lord Dagon?"

 _"Akatosh_ triumphed."

The ex-Thalmor glared, folding his arms across his chest.

Then he began a speech. It was a long, tedious, complicated speech, but Ambarys had been raised in Morrowind, in an age when Vivec's sermons had been preached on a regular basis to every Dunmer of every age, and when dissidents had been punished by death, and so Ambarys was _good_ at finding meanings in long, oblique, seemingly-pointless metaphors, similes and stories. And what this one boiled down to was that Ambarys Rendar (and maybe Malthyr) should worship Auri-El because just at the moment, Auri-El was a bit unbalanced, and the faith of nice, sane, unmurderous people who wanted nice, sane, unmurderous things would act a bit like balancing a sea-saw, and make Auri-El remember that wanton slaughter and torture weren't things that lay within his sphere of influence.

“Why do we care if he forgets? It's only Nords he's killing,” Ambarys said.

"Callous of you, cousin. But yes. I suppose it is, from your perspective,” the ex-Thalmor agreed, green eyes distant, “But… it is not fair. Not on men, and not on him. He did not mind Nords, once, you see. You would not understand, perhaps; the Daedra are not subject to such limitations. Nor, I think, were your Tribunal. But our faith...” the elf trailed off, “Imagine that you are staring through a window. If you have four windows facing east, north, south and west, you do not think that any one of those windows is the only direction you can face, no? But imagine then that I board up three of those windows. How long, if the door is locked and you are trapped inside, before you start to think that the only side from which you can see is the only side that exists?”

“A long time,” Ambarys said staunchly. “There is a thing I have called _memory_ , you see.”

“And if you did not?”

“I'm not worshiping a doddery old half-god with memory problems.”

The high elf's eyes flashed dangerously.

“Better a _doddery old half-god with memory problems_ than a trio of despot oath-breakers willing to do everything from hand their kingdom and every mer who worshiped them into the unworthy hands of _men_ to wandering around marrying the men of Hammerfell and birthing children for Molag Bal.”

Ambarys was roused to sit up in bed, the pain his leg temporarily forgotten.

“You--! You n'wah!”

“Stop agitating him,” Malthyr snapped. “He's injured!”

The Altmer's lip curled. Bastard.

“Those stories were _metaphorical,_ ” Ambarys hissed.

“Metaphorical. Such a convenient word. I wonder, Rendar: does it bother you, that your saints might be misrepresented? Does it matter to you, that even now, when they can give you _nothing_ for your faith in them, that what they say they are in writing differs so dramatically to what you saw and felt when you worshiped them?”

“Listen, you muck-raking fetcher--,”

“Would that be real muck or _metaphorical_ muck you refer to, I wonder?”

Ambarys lunged for the high elf's slender throat-- a violent impulse, that clearly said that he'd spent more time in Windhelm than was healthy-- and collapsed back with a pained yelp. The world swam, and for some unknown, illogical reason, Ambarys' gaze chose _then_ to find the gruesome claw lying partly beneath a rickety shelf. Dizzily, he wondered if he'd be sick.

“Are you--?” Malthyr started.

“Move,” the ex-Thalmor said, and bless the mer, that was an arm supporting his shoulders and a bucket being held beneath his mouth, and Ambarys retched into it, wondering just why he'd been angry with this distant cousin of his in the first place.

He remembered, when his mind cleared.

But by then, he was propped back up on his pillows, a cup of water in his shaking hands, and the Altmer was feeling his leg with practiced fingers, frowning.

“Broken, Rendar?”

“Sprained,” Ambarys insisted, weakly.

Ambarys could not afford for it to be broken.

Ambarys didn't have the gold to waste on healing, or healing potions.

“Broken,” the Altmer said, more firmly. “Have you five or six gold pieces?”

“No,” Ambarys said.

“Yes,” Malthyr said, “But that won't get a potion to fix him. In Windhelm, that won't even get a Nord to walk half a street down here to cast one healing spell.”

“We need do neither. Healing potions are not hard to make, and the ingredients are not hard to find. Even the gutter-rats of this town have mountain-flowers to flog off on the victims they accost daily. I will purchase the cheapest ingredients possible, and mix it up myself.”

“… You're an alchemist?”

“I passed the class three or four centuries ago, yes.”

That didn't sound like a very _good_ Alchemist, to Ambarys.

Apparently Malthyr, who wouldn't have to drink this elf's cheap concoction, didn't share Ambarys' concern.

“Weren't you telling me about your gods?” Ambarys said, as Malthyr withdrew a pouch of coins and passed it across.

“God, not 'gods'. And my Lord Auri-El is probably going to visit you with nightmares every day you spend believing he is capable of sanity, until he is sane again. In your condition, you would have difficulty lasting a month.”

Well… bother.

Bother, double-bother and triple-bother.

No wonder the high elf looked like an ash vampire had fed on him.

“Aren't nightmares _Vaermina's_ domain?” Ambarys complained.

“Another fact my progenitor has, alas, chosen to ignore. If you pray to him, remind him of that, won't you? He is not pleased with me at present, and I would appreciate _not_ dreaming about dying beneath the knife of a dragon priest tonight.”

Ambarys stomach rolled queasily again.

“Think of it in a positive light, Rendar. Auri-El created Mundus for a reason, and he _left_ Nirn without destroying it for a reason, too. He thought we were a good idea… or at least, not a bad enough idea that it was worth killing us all to get his power back. A comforting thought, at least to me.”

With that, the Altmer was gone.

“… He's a bit intense, isn't he?” Malthyr said, after a while, starting on shaping tiles once more.

More than a bit, Ambarys thought, and said. But also… _convinced_. Convinced, as only the Ordinators and the priests of the Tribunal had been in their infallibility, their wisdom, and their strength. Dangerous, was what that elf was.

_Would that be real muck or metaphorical muck you refer to, I wonder?_

Really, Ambarys thought uncharitably, it was a wonder his own side hadn't knifed him years ago.

The ex-Thalmor returned within the hour, with an air of grim satisfaction, a small red bottle and a black eye he'd probably thoroughly deserved. The bottle was offered to him, with a careless: “Drink it, that I might return to preaching at you with a clear conscience.”

… It _smelt_ non-lethal, certainly.

“How much is it worth?” Ambarys frowned.

“It was mixed by a Thalmor, my parsimonious cousin, so absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, in fact. I daresay no one will touch the gutter-waif's flowers for a week, and everything ground by the same pestle that I used will drop in value by ten percent. Fortunately, six gold pieces was enough to convince the gutter-waif to fetch me some wheat to go with her mountain flowers, and the owner of the White Phial is on his deathbed, so he was not in a position to object to my use of his utilities. A fortunate outing, all things considered.”

Ambarys eyed the potion, leg twinging.

“I assure you, wheat and blue mountain flower will not kill you, no matter how poor a job I've done at mixing them.”

 _Wheat_ mightn't. Blue and purple flowers could look the same though, and purple could look like red, and Ambarys didn't trust flowers much in general. Bring a bottle of matze to the local shrine, leave it in front of the altar, and let the gods do their work. That was the way Ambarys liked to do things, and would have if the shrines in Windhelm hadn't belonged to Talos, and if building your own shrine hadn't needed things like gold.

Ambarys leg twinged again.

Well, Altmer were a magical lot. This one probably knew what he was doing. Gingerly, Ambarys took the potion, which tasted… surprisingly not terrible. Like wheat, with a slight bitterness, and then a bone _moved--_ Ambarys felt it move, and it should have been agony, but Ambarys' leg suddenly, magically and, Ambarys couldn't help feeling, unfairly, wasn't hurting. It was feeling  _good._

“Wheat and blue mountain flower, you said?” he said, grudgingly.

“Indeed.”

Dunmer didn't have healers.

Dunmer injured themselves and pulled muscles on farms daily, and couldn't afford healing.

“If I worship your doddery old god,” the ex-Thalmor twitched, “How likely would you be to teach me how to make potions as good as that one?”

“That depends on how often you deride my Lord Auri-El, prince of Time, and child of the Sun.”

The Altmer drove a hard bargain, when he turned pompous like that.

“What's your name?” Ambarys said at last.

Something flickered in the high elf's eyes.

“Ondolemar, of Alinor.”

“Alright, Ondolemar of Alinor," Ambarys said firmly, "Provided he doesn't want me to eat people or kill anyone, we've got a deal."

\--O--

_Lodrik,_

_Observe only, and continue to report._

_In future, direct all letters to myself, not the First Emissary._

_V._


	40. The Downside of Eating Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The Downside of Eating Dragons

Dragonflesh was not edible.

That, Ulfric decided at about one o'clock in the morning, covered in cold sweat and wrestling with the worst stomach cramp he'd had in years, was putting the matter much too kindly, but right now, Ulfric did not have the energy to think up the truly vile slurs the meat deserved. It deserved-- something, though. Three or four sentences-worth of something, because the last time he'd felt this bad had been ten years ago in Riften, when he'd made the mistake of ordering fresh clam chowder from an Argonian.

Damn the lizard. Damn Galmar, too, for suggesting stewing up the dragon's flesh in the first place, and damn Sifnar for agreeing to it.

Damn--

A fresh wave of pain spiked inside.

Ulfric gritted his teeth, and reminded his stomach that Nords were stronger than dragons, alive or dead.

His stomach did its disloyal best to slice itself in two.

_Do not groan. Do not groan. Nords do not groan from stomachaches._

Ulfric tried laughing at the pain.

Laughing did not work very well.

“Do you want a healer, sir?” a guard called, from outside the door.

“I do not,” Ulfric gritted out, scowling, because Nords did not summon healers because they were suffering from indigestion. Nords did not, generally speaking, suffer from indigestion at all.

Who else had had a hand in this, Ulfric thought weakly? Himself, for eating it. The dragon's, for dying. His men, too, and the Thalmor, for helping slay it. __Especially__ the Thalmor, if Ulfric was right and it _was_ the dragonflesh responsible for this, because the Thalmor was the only one in the Palace of the Kings who'd not eaten the gamy meat; some nonsense about Akatosh and Auri-El being related, and not wanting to eat a distant cousin. The elf had returned his dinner to the kitchens, untouched. A cunning dissimulation, if he had known what it would do.

If the high elf had known, Ulfric would break his nose. Of course, if he did, the elf would simply heal it, which was another set of problems all on its own. Just what was Ulfric going to do about the elf's magic?

Dangerous, to leave it unrestrained. An elf who betrayed once could betray twice, and this particular elf still  _liked_ his kin, even if he was betraying them at the moment. Divided loyalties were tricky at best. Yes, there was the high elf's truce and yes, and there was his god, but the simple truth was that trusting the word of a high elf who _couldn't_ kill or run was easier than trusting one who _could_.

Tomorrow, Ulfric would have to make a decision on that. Tomorrow--

Another wave of agony rattled through him.

_Damn_ the elf's mad god. Damn Akatosh, too, for spawning Alduin and all his kin in the first place.

Damn every god but Talos to Oblivion.

\--O--

Ondolemar slept poorly.

Partly, this was because tonight's nightmares had mainly involved the unfortunate fates of those Ayleids who had fought beside Queen Alessia and decided to flee  _north_ during the Ayleid Diaspora; truly, Ondolemar thought queasily, Vrage the Butcher had earned his title-- and partly because after the third such dream, Ondolemar had given up on sleep, and engaged instead in a one-sided argument with his Lord about the importance of _objectivity_ in these dreams, and the glaring absence of any mention of centuries of institutionalised human slavery, Alyeid gut-gardens, flesh-sculptures, and the setting alight of small human children.

Yes, it was true that the Ayleids who had aided the slave-queen had probably not participated in those acts, but on the other hand, the survivors of generations of such mistreatment could hardly be expected to simply _accept_  that from now on every Ayleid they met was supposed to be treated like a friend. Not when Auri-El himself, for all his wisdom, seemed to be struggling to differentiate between Ysgramor and Vrage the Butcher, five or six thousand years deceased, and Ulfric Stormcloak, currently alive.

Really, considered objectively, it was a small miracle that Ulfric himself seemed able to differentiate between Ondolemar and Elenwen.

Auri-El, Ondolemar sensed, was not pleased with this logic.

When sleep crept up on Ondolemar next, he dreamed not of death but of wandering alone in a long, dark tunnel, frightened, hungry and lost. Ondolemar woke drenched with sweat, curled up in an awkward ball against the wall.

Embarrassing, really.

Ondolemar did not sleep again. Instead, he paced.

Two steps in a second. One hundred and twenty steps in a minute.

Seven-thousand-two-hundred steps in an hour.

Ondolemar counted each one.

Time crawled slowly on. 

No one came to release Ondolemar from his cell, when what felt like it ought to be five o'clock came.

Unwelcome, that. Was it not five after all? Or was it just that Nords did not like magic, and now that they were no longer drunk on victory and on mead, they'd had time to remember that he had some? Well, if it was the latter, hopefully, it would be Wuunferth who returned with more bracers, instead of Galmar with another pair of iron gloves.

Another hour passed.

"Guards?" Ondolemar demanded, impatiently.

No one answered. Ondolemar felt a pinprick of annoyance.

If Ambarys Rendar's hovel flooded because Cahlad or Cahlad's replacements had hangovers--

Ondolemar scowled down at nothing.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty.

And then, because not even a vampire attack accompanied by Ondolemar's own frank, clearly-worded and eminently sensible recommendation had induced Ulfric Stormcloak to narrow the bars of his prison cell doors, Ondolemar knelt, slithered free, and departed upstairs in search of Windhelm's errant security.

In Markarth, he'd have been arrested before he'd climbed half-way up the first ramp.

In Alinor, he'd have been arrested before his torso had left his cell.

This was Windhelm though, so Ondolemar stepped across the threshold of the barracks uncontested, and--

Sleeping? _All_ of them were sleeping?

If he'd been their commander, he'd have had them flogged.

Cahlad did not seem to be here, so Ondolemar selected a Nord at random, and gave him a shove.

"Wake up, Nord. I am overdue to be released from my cell."

 The Nord muttered something unintelligible, and... pained?

Ondolemar frowned. He was not a healer, but that did not sound _good._

_I do not have time for your hangovers._

Abruptly, he stalked upstairs, in search of the throne room.

Abandoned. No, not abandoned. There was one guard standing near the far doors, whey-faced and sweating. A young Nord, true, but at least he was still upright. Ondolemar bore down on him, and injected three centuries worth of authority into his bearing just in case the boy felt like trying to arrest him.

"You," he said. "I require an escort."

"I'm pretty sure you... aren't supposed to be-- wandering around like this."

"True. By now, I am supposed be outside, converting a Dunmer. Get moving, imp. I have a schedule to keep."

The Stormcloak passed a hand across his brow.

"If you seek sympathy for your hangover, you will not find it in me. You have only yourself to blame for drinking that swill."

"I'm not-- suffering from a hangover, elf. I'm _fine."_

"Demonstrably, you are not, or you would be moving."

The Stormcloak scowled, and then let out a pained wheeze.

Just what did ail him, anyway? Disease?

"Have you summoned a healer?" Ondolemar said, after a short pause.

"I don't... need a healer. Not... Not for _indigestion."_

... Ah.

"Just how much _did_ you eat, yesterday? And how many of your peers partook of my distant half-cousin's corpse?"

"If you mean the dragon, you could... pick a different way of putting it. That sounds gross."

Ondolemar eyed the Nord, unimpressed.

"I'm not going outside with you, elf, no matter how much you glare at me. My shift doesn't end for another four hours."

Wretched human.

"Very well. I will go on my own, then. I am not being too optimistic, I trust, in assuming that you are capable of making the necessary reports for that? Provided, of course, that you survive your meal."

"I'm not. And..." a moment of hesitation, where the Nord bit his lip. Then: "Why wouldn't I survive it?"

No reason, assuming the boy had chewed his meal well. Dragonflesh might, according to Ondolemar's grandfather, be indigestible to anyone not capable also of absorbing dragonsouls, but like a bellyful of wood-shavings and grass, it would eventually, albeit painfully, pass through the Nord's system.

Still. This Nord was young enough to sound just slightly worried, and it did not look as if he intended to open the palace gates for Ondolemar any time soon. And so:

"Do you know why dragons are also called 'worms'?" Ondolemar said, conversationally.

"... They are?"

"They are," Ondolemar confirmed.

"Why?"

"We will get to that shortly. But first, tell me: Have you ever sliced an earthworm in half?"

There was a soft, pained, wheeze.

"You have, of course. You are a Nord. Undoubtedly you played in the mud at some point when you were a child, and undoubtedly when you did at least one hapless worm crossed your path. And you would have observed, when it did, that unlike you or I, who tend to bleed to death when we are sliced in two, worms heal and instead of having one, you now have two."

"Yeah?" the Nord managed.

"Extrapolate that principle. It is a different type of worm I refer to now, but undoubtedly you have seen what happens to cows who eat worms in your fields."

"Not really. I'm not... not really a farmer."

"Let me tell you what happens. The worms lodge somewhere inside that cow's gut, and consume the food she swallows. They grow stronger with each bite she takes... are you sure you do not wish to find a healer?"

"'m fine. Keep talking."

Ondolemar's lips thinned.

This was supposed to be giving the brat nightmares, not distracting him from a stomachache.

"The worms," the Nord prodded, wretched boy.

"The worms," Ondolemar said, coolly, "Well, dragons, being worms, share much the same nature. Each piece of their flesh you bite off lives, and lodges as a parasite inside your stomach. The smaller your bites, the more there are. You do not notice, once the pain of their binding passes, but slowly, your soul and theirs begin to meld. Slowly, you begin to feel torn by urges that are not your own. Urges to dominate, slaughter, and burn."

"Yeah?"

"And finally, the dragonsoul grows stronger than your own. A duel is fought. If your soul is as ice, theirs burns as the hottest flame," Ondolemar summoned a spike of frost and slammed it into an undersized fireball, for emphasis; the Stormcloak tensed, scowling, and then staggered, clutching his stomach.

"Watch th'magic, elf."

The ice melted, dripping onto the floor.

"And as you can imagine, your soul does not fare well against a dragon. In time, your soul vanishes, displaced completely, and the dragon is reborn in you, lingering on for eternity in uneasy undeath. So, long ago, were the Dragon-priests born, and by such laws do the dreugr, once the proudest of your heroes, haunt the burial mounds of the dead as monsters."

"I'm pretty sure you're lying."

"Am I?" Ondolemar said, "Do you not feel the smallest urge, even now, to tear my head from my neck?"

"Sort of. But that's-- ugh, just because you're a Thalmor."

Ondolemar gave up.

Terrifying this particular Nord properly seemed to be a futile effort anyway.

"You really should see a healer. If they have the time to cure a Thalmor like me, undoubtedly they can cure you. Where do they live in this town? Your false-god's shrine, or the Halls of the Dead?"

"Talos isn't a false-god."

A fair point, if Lord Stendarr could be trusted.

"That does not answer my question."

Inconveniently, the Nord did not seem capable of replying just at present. Ondolemar glared at him.

"Where does Galmar sleep?"

There were a few seconds of silence, where the boy merely rasped painfully. Then:

"He doesn't. Not usually."

"Where does he _not sleep_ , then?"

"... Why do you want him?"

"Because he has the authority to give me a permission to leave this wretched palace, accompanied by a proper escort."

"You don't-- have that already?"

"Would I be looking for your commander if I did?"

"... Probably not."

"There is hope for you yet. His location, Nord. I assume he is here in the palace somewhere?"

"I'm pretty sure I shouldn't-- really be telling you that."

"True. But remember that I did help you kill a dragon yesterday. A kindness on my part. Think of the number of you who were not blinded, burned or otherwise reduced to begging on the streets for a living because of my shielding spells. You are, I am sure, weak with gratitude. Certainly you feel you owe me something for that service. You are not wrong."

The Nord did not look like he felt he owed Ondolemar anything of the sort.

"Where is your commander?" Ondolemar said, again. And then, when it looked as if the Nord was going to keep staring at him dubiously, "Cooperate, Nord. Remember that your Jarl likes me, even if you do not."

"... The commander's in the war room, these days. Most days, anyway," the Stormcloak said.

"The war has resumed?" Ondolemar frowned.

"No, but as soon as the Dragonborn stops dragging his heels about... about offending Jarl Maven Black-Briar so we can-- ugh-- actually get a move on and start retaking the Rift, it will be."

Interesting.

"For the record," Ondolemar said aloud, "that, too, is not something you should tell a Thalmor."

"Why'd you _ask_ then, elf?" the Nord complained.

Ulfric Stormcloak, Ondolemar thought, lips thin, recruited his men entirely too young.

"The war room, you said? Where is it?"

There was a short pause. Ondolemar fixed the boy with a look of practiced, imperious command.

"... There," the boy said, pointing.

"Thank you," Ondolemar said, politely.

"Yeah, well... whatever. Don't tell him I sent you, will you?"

"Whether I do or do not, when he realises you were the only Nord in the throne room this morning still vertical, he will inevitably deduce it."

The Nord looked as if he wanted to reply, but unfortunately for him, it looked as if the dragonflesh had other ideas. All he managed was a pained groan.

"If I were you, I would pray to your false-god for that," Ondolemar advised him.

"Because of the commander? Talos won't... won't help me there."

"For your stomach."

The Nord's nose wrinkled doubtfully.

"Yeah, well, that's all very well, but Talos is more of a glorious-battle god than a... than a stomach-ache god. I don't think-- bothering him with this sort of pettiness would be respectful. And stop calling him "false". He's not false. He's as real as I am."

"He will undoubtedly be happy to hear that you think so."

The boy did not respond. His face was waxy.

Well, there was not much that could be done about it. If the boy wanted to be stupidly stoic, that was his choice. Ondolemar was not a healer. Moreover, Ondolemar told that last thought, firmly, he would not have done anything even if he had been. With this firm reminder, Ondolemar spun on his heel and departed for the war room-- an unpleasant room, cold and dank, which turned out to be covered with maps, battle-plans and tiny red and blue flags that Ondolemar, as a Thalmor, really should not have been looking at at all, and-- ah. There was Galmar, leaning over the maps, and Ondolemar was not sure if it was a good sign or a bad one that even looking like a mammoth had stepped on him, Galmar's first response to hearing and seeing a Thalmor unexpectedly enter that room was to swing his great-axe at their chest.

A good sign, Ondolemar decided, reflexively ducking.

At least someone in Windhelm took security seriously.

"Your Jarl will not be happy with you if you kill me, Galmar," Ondolemar said warningly, when Galmar swung again.

"My Jarl will not be happy with _you_ for snooping around our classified military secrets, elf."

"I am not _'snooping'."_

"You're saying you had permission to be in here? Because I'd love to know who gave it to you, if you are. It certainly wasn't Ulfric or me."

"I am _here_  because I was under the _impression_ that we had a deal that between the hours of five and eight, I would be out on your frozen streets, shoveling your gutters and teaching alchemy to a mer who cannot grasp the difference between mountainflowers and stoneflowers. I have crossed three rooms so far, and barring you, only one Nord has not been horizontal. I am owed an explanation, I think. Or if not that, at least an escort, or permission to walk to the Grey Quarter freely alone without being lynched by your soldiers."

"I'm not giving you permission to do anything of the sort, elf. And how did you even _get_ out of your cell, anyway?" Galmar snapped, abruptly allowing the tip of his great-axe to fall to the floor.

"I walked. You will recall my mentioning that I might, if you did nothing about your bars."

Galmar took a hasty step towards Ondolemar.

Ondolemar did not retreat.

"How many of you ate the dragon?" he asked, turning the subject.

"That is none of your damn business."

Ondolemar tsked.

"That many?"

"Careful, elf. I still have enough strength left to strangle you."

"You would do better spending your strength on finding a healer. You do not look well. Your men do not either."

"I am surprised that fact does not transport you with joy."

"You should not be. I value any shield likely to stand between myself and assassins the First Emissary will undoubtedly send when word reaches her of how far I have slipped from the lofty standards of the Aldmeri Dominion."

"You are _very_ lucky Ulfric happens to like you, elf."

"Does he like me?"

Galmar, glowering, was silent.

Ondolemar filed that information away to be analysed later.

"If you did not wish to be bedridden for... however long it does take, to digest a dragon, Lord Stendarr might help you. You saw his gardens. Unlike your ever-busy Talos, he clearly has an abundance of free time to waste meddling with mortals."

"I am _not_ asking a tea-sipping, prissy elf-god for help."

Silently, Ondolemar apologised to Lord Stendarr on Galmar's behalf.

"Lady Mara, then. She is also one of yours, is she not? If she had the time to meddle at Lord Stendarr's side, and to encourage poor Calcelmo to court a _human_ as his bride, she, too, is clearly bored."

"I'm not asking _anyone_ for help, elf. Not my gods, not your gods, and not you, so you can shove your advice up where the sun doesn't shine, and walk _right back_ into your cell where you belong."

"I could," Ondolemar agreed, leaning against the wall, "But as I said, I am overdue in the Grey Quarter. I will be upset if you break our truce. Your Jarl will probably be upset too... assuming he has not broken his word so often already that he no longer cares about oath-breaking."

Galmar swung his fist; a solid right that caught Ondolemar cleanly on the jaw.

Ondolemar allowed, grudgingly, that he might have deserved that. Wordlessly, he healed the bruise.

"You seem to be functional, at least. You will do for an escort, if you are short of subordinates who can stand."

"I do not take orders from Thalmor."

"This grows tedious, Galmar. Must we dance in circles every day about this, until you are well?"

"Be grateful you're able to dance about anything at all. If I had my way, you'd be force-fed dragonflesh until your _teeth_ broke."

"That bad, is it?" Ondolemar said, sympathetically.

Galmar's fists clenched.

"Stop baiting me, elf, or I will do something to you that both of us will regret."

Ondolemar arched an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Bludgeoning me to death, you mean? Touching, that you would regret it. You should be careful, lest I truly grow fond of you."

Galmar, unimaginatively, hit him again.

"As a question of curiosity," Ondolemar said, rubbing his freshly-bruised jaw, "Why is Fort Greenwall still flagged as yours? Did you not give it to the Empire?"

"To confuse spies like you. Now stop snooping and--," abruptly, Galmar broke off, and... yes, unfortunately, that did seem to be concern that Ondolemar could feel twisting somewhere in the region of his chest.

Selfish concern, naturally.

Maybe.

Mostly.

"You could heal them, you know," Ondolemar said, to Lord Stendarr. "You have too much free time on your hands anyway."

"Shut up, elf," Galmar growled.

_You could. You are on speaking terms with Talos, and Talos, being a former Dragonborn, is undoubtedly perfectly capable of absorbing dragonflesh and dragonsouls, from whatever, and whoever, they are currently inconveniencing. If it is impolite to intervene directly, can you not_ ask _the false-god to do something himself, since the fools will not ask him themselves?_

"Stop  _thinking_ things, too," Galmar snapped.

Ondolemar pressed his lips together in a thin line.

_Do you not owe me a favor or three, my distant uncle? Am I not putting up with nightmares daily because of you?_

Galmar's hand closed over Ondolemar's throat.

"Stop. Praying."

"You are aware, I trust, that if you squeeze, I will electrocute you before I suffocate."

Galmar squeezed.

Ondolemar electrocuted him.

Things went downhill from there.

Until, two minutes later, just as Ondolemar was about to send his third bolt of lightning into Galmar's chest, and just after Galmar's fist collided with Ondolemar's eye (he'd already broken his nose), a faint, golden light flickered into existance above Galmar's stomach, and began streaming its way upwards, towards the ceiling. Galmar's skin returned to its normal shade. The whiteness about his lips vanished, and Galmar's faltering grip, unfortunately, tightened tenfold.

Lord Stendarr, it seemed, had obliged.

The dragonflesh was gone.


	41. Lessons in Patience and Alchemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> (Also, again, sorry for the chapter delays. My course is proving just as time-intensive as I was worried it would be ;-;)

## Lessons in Patience and Alchemy

"If you do not-- desist--," Ondolemar wheezed, scrabbling at Galmar's wrist, trying vainly to break the vice-like hold Galmar had about his throat, "you will regret't. I will-- set fire t'your beard."

Galmar, disobliging wretch, tightened his grip.

Dark spots danced before Ondolemar's gaze. Ondolemar-- a mer of his word-- attempted to summon flames. In a fairer world, flames, obligingly, would have come. This was Nirn though, and the flames he reached for slipped from him, slick as oil, and it was a bad sign, Ondolemar knew, when the pool of one's magic was empty and one stopped being able to see or breathe at all. Vaguely, he wondered if he'd wake. If he did, he wanted to wake up in the room with the fire. He liked that room.

He did his best to communicate that thought.

And then, abruptly, the pressure at his throat was gone and Ondolemar staggered against the door frame, gagging dryly.

"Did anyone ever tell you you were a _damn fool?"_ Galmar said roughly.

"Father," Ondolemar slurred, once there was enough air in his lungs to produce the word. "Repeatedly."

"Well, he was right."

"He often was," Ondolemar agreed, massaging his bruised throat.

"... I warned you not to bait me," Galmar said, shifting slightly.

Ondolemar chose to ignore that. One did not dwell on one's own stupidity longer than one needed to, after all. He occupied himself instead with twitching his rumpled clothes back into order. With breathing. With swiping at the blood that dribbled from his broken nose, and waiting for his vision to return and for the sickening dizziness to disappear.

"Dandy," Galmar muttered.

"Boor," Ondolemar returned, reflexively.

There was a short, unfriendly silence.

"Given that it is now seven," Ondolemar said, breaking it, "I ought to be able to visit Rendar until noon."

"Like Oblivion you do," Galmar said, glaring, "What you _ought,_ elf, is to get back inside your cell."

"So you can summon a guard down here and tell them to unlock said cell and escort me from it to the Grey Quarter? That seems a little too much like double handling to me. Tell me, Galmar, is there some reason you will not? Or do you reject the idea merely because is it I, a Thalmor, who suggested it?"

"Besides the fact that your being in this room is strictly illegal, you mean?"

"Mm. Let's be honest. It is not as if your guards won't know I've been here anyway. I was directed to come here by them, after all."

Galmar was silent. Ondolemar twitched his broken nose back into place and healed it, too.

"Milkdrinker," Galmar muttered.

"One day, I will teach you how to properly insult an Altmer. If I am generous, I may even teach you the words and the intonations that will make every Altmer not too arthritic to walk freely do their utmost to punch you in the face."

"... Your kind have such words?"

"We do, Galmar, and though it may come as a blow to you, they have nothing to do with drinking milk."

Galmar was silent. Ondolemar healed his neck. There was not much to be done about the dried blood, alas, but with luck, Rendar would have a basin of water which he could use to wash off the worst of it. Ondolemar tried to remember if he'd seen one, the last time he'd visited. Near the windows? Near the bar?

"Alright, elf. Here's the deal," Galmar said, abruptly, "I will summon a guard, and you will go quietly with that guard to the Grey Quarter until noon, and neither of us will ever mention the dragon, dragonflesh, or you waltzing into the war room freely ever, ever again. Deal?"

"Deal."

\--O--

"What happened to you, mister?"

It was the gutter-waif who spoke. Ondolemar, walking in front of a Nord who was not Cahlad and whose sullen air suggested that she'd have gladly swapped places with Cahlad in the healing halls had she but been offered the choice, spared the child an impatient look. Young or not, the girl ought to recognise Nord handiwork when she saw it. She was one, after all.

The pint-sized Nord did not seem to agree. She fell into step beside Ondolemar in an awkward gait that was half-walk, half run.

"You're bleeding, mister."

"I am not," Ondolemar said, swiftening his steps. 

"You are. Right here," the Nord said, not taking the hint, rubbing her cheek. "And here. And your front, too."

Ondolemar paused, glancing down, and silently damned Galmar Stone-Fist and his nose-breaking tendencies to Oblivion.

"See. You're hurt."

"I was hurt," Ondolemar corrected her, coldly, "I am now, however, fine. That is one of the numerous advantages of knowing healing spells. And if you are hoping your concern will induce me to buy more of your flowers, know that your efforts are futile. I am out of gold."

"I w-wasn't after gold. I was j-just worried."

Wonderful. The girl was of the pitiful, weeping sort.

How Nords grew from children like this to adults like Galmar was a mystery.

"Listen well, child--,"

The Stormcloak gripped Ondolemar's shoulder, a touch too firmly. Ondolemar stiffened haughtily.

"She's eight," the Stormcloak hissed, voice low, "and her father saved my life. She likes you for some reason, so be nicer to her, goldskin, or I'll break your face."

"That threat," Ondolemar hissed back, just as softly, "would have more force if Galmar had not broken it already."

"I can assure you my breaking it again won't hurt you less."

A silent glaring match ensued.

It was broken, a moment later, by a soft tug on the front hem of Ondolemar's tunic.

"You should visit Talos," the girl said, clearly either deaf, or having misconstrued that hushed conversation entirely, "Talos is nice. He heals you free."

Worry flickered in the Stormcloak's eyes, and her grip on Ondolemar's shoulder tightened. Ondolemar closed his eyes, briefly, and opened them again. The girl, apparently oblivious to her status as a living, breathing  _faux pas_ , looked up at him with guileless blue eyes.

"Do you know what a Thalmor is, girl?" Ondolemar gritted out.

The girl nodded.

"Thalmor are slimy bastards who I shouldn't talk to. Niranye said so."

Niranye the thief, mm? If Ondolemar hadn't strongly suspected that this undersized Nord was the only merchant in Windhelm who would happily sell ingredients to a Thalmor--

"You should listen to her, Sofie," the Stormcloak said, apparently having no such concerns, "This Thalmor's just as slimy a bastard as the rest of his kind."

The girl looked skeptical.

"Really, mister?"

"Certainly I am a Thalmor," Ondolemar allowed. "However, since the Thalmor come from pure and entirely legitimate stock and also wash, the terms, 'slimy,' and 'bastard,' are grossly inaccurate. I resent them."

The girl digested that.

"Well, I don't think you are a Thalmor. You helped kill the dragon. Rolff gives me bread sometimes, and he says the Thalmor are cowardly milkdrinkers. Cowards don't help fight dragons. And Niranye said that if you were helping Nords and Dark Elves, you're probably an Exthalmor. She's one too, she said."

Deep, calming breaths.

Technically, it was true Ondolemar wasn't acting much like a Thalmor.

Technically.

Deep. Calming. Breaths.

"Niranye's a high elf like you, you know," the girl nattered on, oblivious.

"I am aware," Ondolemar said, dampeningly.

"She's really nice," Sofie said, not taking that hint either, "She lets me sleep behind her house without calling me a dirty squatter or trying to make me go to an orphanage. She told me I needed to find a family to adopt me soon though because once the war's over she's going to leave Windhelm, and the Jarl will send me to Honorhall Orphanage if he knows father died. I don't want to go to Honorhall. Aventus went to Honorhall, and he said the Mistress beats kids there."

"I would not take it personally, if I were you. Nords, in my experience, make a habit of beating everyone."

The girl's nose wrinkled doubtfully.

"Well, I don't like it. Aventus said it hurts."

"That, I always understood, was rather the point of it."

If the Stormcloak's hold got any tighter, Ondolemar would bruise. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to shake it off.

"Have you told the Jarl?" the Stormcloak said.

The girl scuffed a foot on the snow.

"I'm scared."

"You need to tell him," the Stormcloak said, "Or I will for you."

If that had been meant to be comforting, she'd just failed abysmally. Far from looking reassured, the gutter-rat's face went white.

"C-can't you wait, just until I'm adopted?"

"No, I can't. Why in Talos' name would you _want_  me to wait?"

"Because he'll s-send me there. If he knows father's dead--," a soft hiccup, dangerously close to a sob, "He's busy with the war. He doesn't care about us kids. I don't want to go to Riften. Aventus is scary now. He's-- he's changed, and he spends all his time praying to a mother but everyone knows his mama's dead."

"Shh, Sofie. Don't cry. It's not-- damn it, if he knew what was happening, he'd stop it. He's a true Nord. True Nords don't beat children."

"Don't they?" Ondolemar said, cynically.

The Nord sent him a filthy look.

"You stay out of this, goldskin."

The pint-sized Nord had progressed to clutching the Stormcloak's surcoat, and sniffling. A clever move. If she was trying to look pathetic enough to persuade the Stormcloak to adopt her, she was going the right way about it. Ondolemar wondered if Niranye had given the girl pointers. If she was an ex-Thalmor with a conscience, then perhaps.

Ondolemar glanced at the sky. Auri-El's grace, shining above him, said it was close to nine.

One minute passed. Two.

Ondolemar's escort had released his shoulder in favor of kneeling in front of the gutter-waif, and was now speaking soothingly, telling the brat that Jarl Ulfric cared for every Nord, that young Aventus' suffering _certainly_ wasn't being overlooked because he was part-Imperial, that children did not deserve to be hit for nothing, and that she-- and presumably the absent Aventus-- needed to be brave and stand up for their suffering brethren in Riften's festering halls.

A pretty idea, in theory.

In practice, however... well.

Ondolemar was no Elenwen when it came to understanding Nordic politics, but intuitively, if the Jarl of Eastmarch could not interfere with Markarth, the Jarl of Eastmarch would be unlikely to be able to interfere with the Rift. And since from their current degree of inaction, it seemed that neither Jarl Laila nor Jarl Maven had a problem with children being beaten, short of hiring a few thugs or the Dark Brotherhood, there was not much that could be done about Honorhall. Unless, of course, Ulfric managed to win the war and crown himself high king, in which case he could probably afford to rescue all the helpless orphans he wanted to.

"I'm s-sorry," Sofie was sniffling now, "I don't mean t-to be cowardly. I j-just... I thought..."

"We'll fix this. Don't worry. Not even Jarl Maven could be happy with what is happening there, if all of this is true."

"I am curious," Ondolemar said, idly, "Have you ever met Jarl Maven Black-Briar?"

Ondolemar was ignored.

Ondolemar took that philosophically, and glanced up once more at the sun.

The Stormcloak failed to take the hint.

"I will be with Rendar, if you are looking for me," Ondolemar told her.

The Stormcloak paused in her stream of untruthful reassurances, her tone assuming a rather sharper note.

"Set one foot out of my sight, goldskin, and when I catch you, I'll--,"

"Accept my sincerest felicitations on the newest addition to your family," Ondolemar finished for her, glancing pointedly down at the blubbering girl with false kindness, "But do not fret, Dahra. You will receive them whenever and wherever you come to find me, and the less time you spend in the Grey Quarter, the less chance there is that the lice that live there will take up residence in your braid. It would, I am sure you agree, be a pity if you had to cut it off."

The Stormcloak's eyes flashed.

"Now look here, elf--!"

"Are you r-really going to adopt me, miss?" the girl said, tugging insistently on the Stormcloak's surcoat, pathetically hopeful.

Dead silence. The Stormcloak looked down, stricken. Well, she'd dug that pit herself. Ondolemar left his hapless guard to dig herself out of it as best she could, and strode south, in the direction of the New Gnisis Cornerclub.

\--O--

Ondolemar, Ambarys thought, was not a good teacher.

Ondolemar, in turn, said that Ambarys was not a good student.

Ambarys thought being a good student was overrated. He dragged his heels about leaving the New Gnisis Cornerclub, haggled over the price of everything Nurelion's apprentice tried to sell him-- wheat was worth five gold pieces, thank you very much, not ten and certainly not fifteen!-- didn't grind his wheat up enough because his wrist got sore after three minutes of squashing the hard little seeds, and ended up with a sludgy potion he'd not have fed to a mutt.

For a first attempt, Ondolemar said, it was not too bad.

Well, that might be true, but even if it was, Ambarys did not understand why he needed to use Nurelion's alchemy lab instead of the mortar and pestle that lived stashed beneath his bed, and had once belonged to Ambarys' older brother.

Ondolemar, rotten mer, said it had something to do with Towers.

Ambarys didn't understand much about architecture, but he understood enough to know that that was one great big load of rubbish.

Probably, the high elf was just trying to spend more time in a place that didn't smell faintly of mold and stale sewage.

Still... it was-- odd. Odd, and sort of nice, to walk in broad daylight outside the Grey Quarter, and have Nords sneer at someone who wasn't him. Nice, too, to have someone to talk to who didn't look at Ambarys like he was unspeakably old when he waxed nostalgic about Morrowind, and what it had been like to live there when the Tribunal had ruled it. Gods had cared about mortals then. (Gods, Ondolemar countered, still cared about mortals. It was just unfortunate that Ambarys' favorites happened to be dead.)

Then noon came, and Ondolemar was gone, escorted off by a burly Stormcloak to his cell.

Ambarys did not like the high elf.

He certainly didn't miss him.

"Moping for your friend?" Malthyr said, dryly, late evening.

"He's not my friend."

"Missing the only mer in Windhelm as old as you are, then?"

Ambarys thwacked Malthyr with the dishcloth.

Malthyr, undutiful fetcher, ducked.

"I'll take that as a yes, then."

"Stop gossiping and get the dishes done."

\--O--

That night, Ambarys knelt, and prayed. A deal was a deal after all, and no matter how poor a teacher the ex-Thalmor was, Ambarys fully intended to keep getting free lessons in Alchemy for as long as Ondolemar was prepared to offer them.

"What you pray for is up to you, so long as you acknowledge his existence and don't believe he is obligated to do whatever you want him to, or feel however you feel he ought to feel," Ondolemar had said, earlier that day, which was all very well, except that Ambarys hadn't the slightest clue how to pray without doing either of those things. What if he made Ondolemar's ancestor mad at him? Worse, what if praying to Ondolemar's ancestor made Azura mad at him?

Lessons, Ambarys reminded himself. Profit.

Potions could sell for hundreds of gold pieces, if they were mixed well.

Ambarys fortified himself with a sip of matze, and asked St. Vivec for inspiration.

Inspiration, unfortunately, failed to come.

In the end, he kept it simple.

Firstly, he apologised to Ondolemar's ancestor for not being a high elf.

Then he asked Auri-El not to take it personally that Ambarys still got him confused sometimes with Akatosh.

Finally, short on inspiration about what to say to this particular deity, he asked him to tell him if there was any offering Ambarys was supposed to be making before he sent any nightmares for not offering it, because Ambarys' life was hard enough already as it was and nightmares were Vaermina's domain anyway. He also, after a moment of consideration, asked if Auri-El was the same person who'd owned the bow and shield that the Buoyant Armigers had been so proud of at Ghost-Gate, or whether the similarity of the names was just a coincidence.

That seemed like a pretty good effort for day one.

Conscience clear, Ambarys slept.


	42. Interlude: Of Cats and Mice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> A/N: _We will not talk about my update speeds. *Jedi handwaves* (By which I mean, I'm sorry /o\\)_

## Interlude: Of Cats and Mice

Elenwen sat at her desk, hands elegantly folded, deep in thought.

She had been sitting so for the last two hours, and what she was thinking about was the probable future for her and for the Dominion in Skyrim.

It was not a promising one. When someone capable of arming themselves with an Elder Scroll, obliterating whole nests of Falmer, entering Aetherius, and defeating a god wanted one's faction dead-- and after his last  _most_ unfortunate visit to the Embassy, Elenwen did not doubt that the Dragonborn did want the Thalmor dead-- then the position of one's faction, in Elenwen's opinion, was not good.

She had written to the Ruling Council, politely explaining this.

She had also, equally politely, requested to be re-posted to a more stable province.

The Ruling Council had written back, commending her for her insight. However, said the Ruling Council, kind in tone but inexorably firm, she must think not of her own future, but of the Dominion. The Dominion was not yet ready for the Second Storm. The Dominion wished to maintain peaceful relationships with the races of men, for as long as it took for the last of Talos' faith to be banished from the face of Tamriel. It had been her own plan, the letter reminded her, to incite the Stormcloak Rebellion. It was she who had claimed herself capable of controlling the ensuing war. The Dominion had believed her then, and it believed in her now. A re-posting, at this point in time, was out of the question. For the Glory of the Dominion, the letter finished, in flowing Aldmeri.

The letter, Elenwen decided, two lines in, was extremely lucky that she needed to finish reading it, or it might have been incinerated.

There had been a saying, in Black Marsh.

"To save the body, it is sometimes necessary to cut off the tail."

Elenwen had cut off too many metaphorical tails herself not to recognise what was happening now.

Someone, somewhere, did not want to lose face over the debacle that was Skyrim, and she was to be the offering on that altar.

Well, Elenwen thought, lip curling, if the Council imagined, in their infinite wisdom, that she would rot, docile and obedient, in a warded Embassy, deprived of power and wealth and subsisting, as she had once subsisted in the long years spent in the diamond mines of Dun-Ahhe, on whatever Oblivion-spawned food the Daedra she conjured supplied her with for however long it took for Ulfric Stormcloak and the Dragonborn to die, and for the Dominion to reestablish their power on this frozen patch of Auri-El forsaken filth--

"Madam Ambassador?" a voice stammered; Captain Valnar, by the sound of it.

There was a moment of silence.

Then Elenwen mastered herself and turned towards the door, smiling.

Brooding, after all, though emotionally satisfying, was terribly unproductive.

"You may enter," Elenwen said, kindly.

Captain Valnar did, bearing an armful of reports, letters, and the interesting news that not only had Captain Valmir managed to get himself killed by the Dragonborn (a pity, that. Elenwen had liked Valmir), there had, apparently, been a massacre at the Shrine of Boethiah. Valnar showed a tendency to linger; Elenwen smiled at him, and asked if there was anything else he needed. Valnar blanched, stuttered out a suitably respectful, "No, Madam Ambassador," and saw himself out.

Elenwen returned to her thoughts.

They returned to the future of the Thalmor in Skyrim, and inevitably, to Ulfric Stormcloak.

Hot-headed, unwise, weak, childless Ulfric, whose rebellion Elenwen had nurtured so carefully for so many long, fruitful years, and who now, thanks to the Dragonborn's interference, was going to send the beautiful plans Elenwen had made twenty years ago for Skyrim crashing to the ground. Make peace with the rebels, the Dominion demanded. Keep the races of men fighting each other, not us. Influence their policies. Destabilise them from the inside. 

Laughable, really. Elenwen knew-- who better?-- just how much Ulfric Stormcloak loathed the Aldmeri Dominion, and why.

It was natural.

A year ago, a month ago, it had even been amusing.

It had grown less amusing when the Dragonborn had proven he had what it took to defeat Alduin, child of Akatosh and Dragon-God of Time.

Elenwen had not-- and she could concede that this had been an oversight-- anticipated that the Dragonborn could stop Alduin so quickly. She had not, in fact, prophesies aside, truly believed the Dragonborn capable of stopping Alduin at all.

What Elenwen needed right now was a tail of her own.

What Elenwen needed was someone who was capable of negotiating with Ulfric Stormcloak when he won the war.

No... that, perhaps, was too ambitious.

What she needed was to convince the _Ruling Council_  that a suitable subordinate existed who was capable of negotiating successfully with Ulfric Stormcloak. A show of proof of their competence... a reminder that Elenwen was, really, the last mer any sane official should be sending to negotiate anything with Ulfric Stormcloak when he held the balance of power... A word, whole reams of words, put in for her by a certain former classmate who owed her a favor or three, and whose cousin had funded fully one third of the war effort in the Great War...

Rising, Elenwen padded over to a closet, and poured herself a glass of Colovian brandy.

An elegant beverage, Colovian brandy.

It suited her.

It suited the mer she planned to recommend, too.

Ondolemar might, in Elenwen's cynical opinion, be guilty of something that surpassed mere dissidence and bordered on actual treason-- Ulfric Stormcloak would hardly, after all, have spared from torture and death one who had not betrayed the Dominion in _some_ way, and engaging in the sort of drinking matches J'datharr had reported were, obviously, not signs of a loyal Thalmor officer-- but Elenwen saw no need to report matters so bluntly to the Ruling Council. To the Ruling Council, Elenwen would report him as a deputy ambassador, undertaking a placement test at her orders. There were papers needed for such an appointment, of course, but such papers lay within her purview. They could be forged, and backdated. The Ruling Council might have suspicions, but they would not have proof.

Ulfric's elderly, doddering battlemage might be a mere decade away from death at best, but his spells were still strong enough to stop Elenwen from scrying exactly what Ondolemar was doing in Windhelm.

Distance mattered, when it came to scrying.

If he was strong enough to stop her spells here, his magic would stop all but the most dedicated Diviners in Alinor. The Council would hardly use those to verify one petty appointment.

Yes. That plan, Elenwen thought, swirling her brandy, would do nicely.

Auri-El be praised that she'd not yet ordered Ondolemar's assassination.

And if the plan did work... if her errant subordinate was so fortunate as to be appointed to the position of First Emissary to the Kingdom of Skyrim in her place, and if the official letter of his appointment just so happened to be written in Elenwen's extremely distinctive hand and delivered by a messenger to Ulfric Stormcloak first... well, that would merely be Ondolemar's bad luck. Elenwen would be on a boat to High Rock long before Ondolemar's disloyal head parted company with his well-bred shoulders.

The only pity, Elenwen thought, weighting down a piece of parchment and dipping her quill in her inkwell, was that if her plans went as she wanted them to, she would not be able to see Ulfric Stormcloak's face when he read that letter herself.


	43. In Which Blood Is (Sometimes) Thicker Than Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## In Which Blood Is (Sometimes) Thicker Than Water

There were good mornings and there were bad mornings, when one was managing on less than one hour of sleep each day.

Today was a bad morning.

"It's not fair," Ambarys said, at 5.am, when Ondolemar crossed the threshold of the New Gnisis Cornerclub.

Childish, those words. Ondolemar frowned at them, and at Ambarys himself, who was hunched near the fireplace on a spindly chair, wrapped tightly in a worn bearskin rug. A bad sign, when Ambarys Rendar was brooding instead of actively working to create coin. Equally bad was the fact that Ambarys’ face was drawn, his crimson eyes were bloodshot, and his lips, if the flickering firelight could be trusted, looked like they’d been recently chewed raw.

Odd, Ondolemar thought, vaguely.

There had been a scholar, once, in Alinor, who'd posited that going for extended periods without sleep was not completely unlike being drunk. He was a shameless liar, Ondolemar realised now, who had probably falsified all his data to increase his publication numbers, because Ondolemar's head felt like Galmar was trying to prise it open with a chisel, and one's head did not feel like that when one was drunk. On the other hand, the ground, admittedly, had not been feeling quite as steady as it ought to have these past few days, and somehow it was difficult to concentrate on any one thing for as long as the logical part of Ondolemar's mind told him he ought to be able to.

 _It is expected,_ logic whispered, without sympathy.  _Concentrate harder_. _You are an Altmer. You are better than this._

"You can shut the door," Ambarys said. "You're letting in a draft."

Ondolemar supposed he was.

Obligingly, he shut the door behind him, and wandered over to the fireplace.

"Tell me, Ambarys, how do you feel about my using your spade to clear your gutters?"

"Badly, since you've already got one of your own that works perfectly well. And you are _supposed_ to ask me what is bothering me, when I say something like 'it's not fair,'" Ambarys said, glaring at him.

"I am, am I?"

"Yes."

On the one hand, this was not how Ondolemar had planned to spend his morning. On the other, Ambarys was, ostensibly, an ally, and he did seem to be genuinely upset about something.

"... What is bothering you?" Ondolemar said, at last.

"Guess."

An unhelpful response. Still, having committed himself this far, there was, Ondolemar supposed, no harm in continuing. It was a waste of time, but there were worse ways to waste time. Several worse ways, in fact, and clearing snow without a spade from gutters choked with sewage because one's spade had been dropped by Cahlad and gotten its handle charred to cinders by a dragon definitely qualified as one of them.

Philosophically, Ondolemar tallied all the things he'd ever heard Ambarys Rendar complain about, and the number of times the mer had complained about them.

"... Taxes?"

"No," Ambarys said tightly, glancing at him. "They're not fair either, of course, but they're not what's bothering me at the moment."

"... Nords?"

"No."

"Me?"

Ambarys glanced up at him, and then back down, chewing his lip.

"... Sort of, and sort of not."

"... I concede defeat, cousin," Ondolemar informed him. "Tell me, what is it, at this _specific_ moment, that you are not finding fair?"

"I..." Ambarys started, and trailed off, curling a bit more securely into his rug.

Ondolemar waited, patiently, for exactly two minutes.

"Do you intend to tell me what is bothering you, Ambarys, or do you intend to sit there stewing indefinitely?"

The latter, it seemed, because Ambarys' hands were twisting nervously, and though he kept twitching he didn't seem to actually intend to speak. Useless, really. There was a second, equally spindly chair at a worm-eaten table next to the wall. Ondolemar retrieved it and sat next to Ambarys, partly because his legs were getting stiff, and partly because the Altmeri were a tall race, and there was a chance that confessing secrets to a mer who was towering over him was a thing Ambarys actually minded.

He was rewarded, after a while, with an:

"I kept my word. About praying, I mean."

That was reassuring, if Ambarys wasn't lying. It also meant a guilty conscience on that count was not the cause of Ambarys' current misery.

"You were careful, I trust," Ondolemar said, frowning, "to emphasise Auri-El's autonomy?"

"Yes," Ambarys said, stiffly, to a floorboard. "I did everything you told me to."

A vague suspicion stirred.

"... Did you dream, perchance, last night?"

Ambarys sent him a look that was part accusing, part entreaty, and very, very small.

 _Truly?_ Ondolemar thought, holding that gaze. _One night? One single night of nightmares was enough to reduce you to this?_

That wasn't really being fair though, was it? Ambarys Rendar was not a mer who had spent a lifetime spilling blood, and persuading others to spill it for him. Rendar was the sort of mer who vomited at the sight of one severed claw, and who was still naïve enough to think that just because two people completed the same work in the same time, they deserved the same tax and the same pay. He was still naïve enough, too, to think that if he kept looking at Ondolemar like that, Ondolemar might actually offer him comfort.

Pitiful, really.

Ondolemar looked away first, to the fire.

"I did warn you, I believe, that your sleeping hours would not be peaceful until my Lord is well again."

"Yes, well, you didn't warn me _enough."_

The silence stretched. A log broke, sending up a shower of sparks. Absently, Ondolemar stamped out an adventurous ember.

It was... curious, actually, just how interesting the back of one's hand could be, if one stared at it for long enough.

"... You really think it's a good idea, what you're doing?" Ambarys said, after a while.

"I do."

"Well, I don't. I hate this. Do you know how many ways it’s possible to chop up defenseless elves?” Ambarys said, eyes dark.

"I prefer the term 'mer' myself," Ondolemar said, frowning at him, "It is infinitely neater than 'elf', linguistically. And so far, I have seen..." mentally, Ondolemar counted them, "exactly seventy-two. Of course, if we include in our count the various painful ways it is possible to kill such defenseless mer _without_ chopping them up, because in fairness, not every Atmoran was lucky enough to have a sharp weapon handy and long ago, the Atmorans actually honored their battlemages, that figure doubles.”

“... Really?" Ambarys said, sounding queasy, "Mine was just chopping.”

“Have patience. I am sure, in time, that they will come.”

"You're not being very comforting, you know."

Ondolemar supposed he wasn't.

"Is there something I could say that would make you feel better, cousin?"

"Not really."

Which made that a rather useless thing to have complained about, didn't it?

Ondolemar said so.

"Fetcher," Ambarys mumbled.

There was another long silence.

"I'm scared," Ambarys said, at last.

"Why?"

"Because I don't...  there was a friend of mine, once, who was a Sleeper. I don't suppose you... though actually, you probably do remember. We worked in the same Cornerclub. I used to watch him, when I wasn't working. I used to follow him when he walked outside at night, and even when he was just sitting there, I used to be so terrified that if I went to sleep, I'd never see him again. It was decades before I could sleep without feeling sick every time I woke for no reason at all. If your god is going to keep this up for years--," Ambarys broke off, drawing his knees up more securely against his chest, "I'm just not sure it's worth it. Praying, I mean. I'm not an Altmer like you. Even if we do help him, he won't like me."

 _He might_ , Ondolemar wanted to say, except that a log that had been sullenly smoldering away up until now finally decided to ignite, and Ondolemar's head chose that moment of all moments to decide it did not like bright lights emitted by healthy flames. Ondolemar closed his eyes, fighting down a wave of nausea. It passed. Slowly, but it passed.

There was a hand on his shoulder.

Ondolemar frowned at it, and wondered when Ambarys had moved.

“I didn’t mean it, you know. You don’t need to-- I mean, we're family after all, aren't we, in the end? Anyway," Ambarys said, sounding, oddly, almost as if it was he who was trying to offer Ondolemar comfort, which made no sense at all, "I want your alchemy lessons. And it's not like I get much sleep anyway with Rolff wandering around breaking my windows."

Ondolemar became aware, abruptly, that his fingers were clenched too tightly. He frowned at them, too.

They did not relax.

"I _do_ want you to tell me how to mash up a giant’s toe properly with wheat, though, at some point when you think I won’t mangle it, because I was having a talk with Niranye last night, and she said that those healing potions sell _better_ than the ones with blue mountain flowers.”

Ondolemar laughed, short and sharp and he'd need to work on this, because if this weakness was going to afflict him for years, he needed to learn how to ignore it.

"I don't see what's funny."

“They are not healing potions," Ondolemar said, which in hindsight was not funny at all.

_Master yourself. Control yourself._

_You are above this._

“… They’re not?” Ambarys frowned,

“No.”

"What are they, then?"

"Extremely difficult potions to make, since making them requires killing giants."

“… Well, I want to learn them anyway.”

“When you have progressed to the point where you do not vomit at the sight of a dragon claw, I may trust you with the job of grinding up a giant’s toe. In the meantime, I advise you to curb your enthusiasm. I can assure you, your bile will not add to the salability of your final product. Nor," Ondolemar added pointedly, "Will the bits of bone you fail to grind into powder because you decided that your wrist was aching too much to finish properly half-way through.”

“... Bastard.”

Ondolemar arched an eyebrow at him.

“… _You_ could make it," Ambarys told him. "I could just tell Niranye I’d mixed it. She wouldn't know the difference.”

“She would. Assuming she possesses a functional brain, that is, and since she is an Altmer there is a high chance that she does. And anyway, I would still need a giant’s toe. Do you feel like wandering out of Windhelm’s gates and fetching me one? I hear giants are plentiful around Whiterun these days.”

Ambarys visibly deflated.

“… Oh well. Fine. I’ll just… grind up wheat and mountain flowers all day, then, and get rich selling those to Revyn, pray once a day for you, and never sleep for the rest of my life unless I’ve picked a fight with a Nord first and got myself knocked out cold. How does that sound?”

“That is not a bad idea, actually. I should seek out Galmar.”

“Lucky you. All _I’ve_ got is Rolff.”

“Untrue. I know of half a dozen Nords who would gladly deck you for speaking to them. For speaking to someone else in front of them, even. Come to the Palace of the Kings; I will be happy to introduce you to them.”

“… I hate you.”

"Do you?"

"Yes. I hate my life, too. I'm sick of this, and it hasn't even started. I hate blood. I hate-- gods, all of it. I mean, the only sort of hart I like to see being carved up on a regular basis is a deer.”

“… You enjoy eating deer hearts?” Ondolemar frowned.

“It was a pun,” Ambarys sniffed.

“… Ah.”

There was a short silence.

"We should do something productive, or I should," Ondolemar said, at last. "I owe you something, I feel."

"Lessons, but I'm not up to them yet. I _will_ be, though, after a matze or three," Ambarys declared, uncurling himself from his chair and padding towards the bar. "Want one?"

"At this hour?"

"Yes."

"... Tempting, but Lord Stendarr disapproves of my drinking habits enough as it is. I will decline."

"Suit yourself," Ambarys shrugged, and poured himself first one matze, then two. "Stodgy bastard. Stendarr, not you."

"Lord Stendarr is nothing of the sort," Ondolemar said, feeling impelled to defend his absent relative.

"He is. He hasn't got one minute to care about making Rolff pay to fix my windows, but he's got time to lecture you about your drinking habits?"

"Unless I have grossly misread him, Rolff Stone-Fist prays to Lord Stendarr as often as he prays to your Azura; which is to say, not at all. With the Towers in their current condition, my Lord Stendarr would have as much luck communicating with Rolff as he would with Elenwen."

"... Who's Elenwen?"

"My illustrious government's current Ambassador. A terrifyingly competent mer. She used to be an inquisitor."

Ambarys shuddered.

"Quite."

There was a slight pause.

"How much is that worth, by the way?" Ondolemar frowned, glancing at the broken window pane.

"What? Oh, that. That's-- well, that's not the _point._ "

Ondolemar tsk'd. "So little?"

"It's the principle of the thing. Justice is _supposed_ to be about principles."

"You realise that if you nailed that skin of yours to the frame, you would probably stop the draft. You would at least be warmer, then, while you waited for your justice."

Ambarys sent him a filthy look and poured himself another matze, muttering something in Dunmeri about  _pampered elitists_ who had  _no grasp of how hard things were for the little people_ and  _bastard Altmer snobs._

Oh well. If Ambarys wanted to suffer needlessly, Ondolemar supposed that was his choice.

At least that instinct was keeping him from abandoning Ondolemar's cause.

"What are the chances that you could try convincing any of the mer who frequent this Cornerclub of yours to also direct their prayers towards my Lord?" Ondolemar asked, when Ambarys poured himself glass number four.

"Slim. To be convincing, you have to be convinced. I'm only praying because I like your alchemy lessons and I sort of also like you, when you aren't being an obnoxious s'wit. If you had a heart attack tomorrow, I wouldn't pray to your psychotic ancestor again until the day I died."

Ondolemar digested that.

 _"You_ could try, I suppose," Ambarys said, glancing at him, "They might throw food at you and they might tell you where to shove your preaching, but you could still try."

A fair point.

"I will speak with Ulfric or with Galmar," Ondolemar conceded, "I am sure I will eventually be able to persuade them to allow me out of my cell at a more reasonable hour... have you a time when more mer come here than any other time?"

"In the evenings, after working hours. Also, I hate you."

"I thought you said you liked me," Ondolemar frowned.

"When you aren't being an obnoxious s'wit, which you are. It's not fair that an ex-Thalmor like you can have access to Jarl Ulfric whenever you want to see him and actually talk him into things while I, who've lived in Windhelm longer than he's been alive and payed my taxes dutifully from the day the oath-breaking fetcher started collecting them,couldn't even get him to lift an eyebrow when some bastard forged an entry in my business ledger and lost me a one hundred gold pieces!" 

"In Ulfric's defense, I am considerably more useful to him than you are. It is natural that he cares about me more."

Ambarys made a rude gesture with his right hand.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Then:

"I hate hearts," Ambarys said, apropos of nothing.

"Agreed," Ondolemar said, commiseratingly.

"I hate intestines, too. And spleens. And--,"

"Every internal organ, essentially," Ondolemar summarised, helpfully.

"Yes."

Ambarys emptied his first bottle of matze, and opened a second. Outside, the sun began to rise.

"We could write a book, you know, if he keeps this up,” Ambarys said, on his sixth glass.

"Books are paperwork. I dislike paperwork."

"So do I, but we could still write it. We could call it, ‘ _A History of the Merethic Era in Skyrim: An Objective Account by Auri-El._ ’ You never know. Some dedicated and extremely morbid historian might buy it. In fact," Ambarys said, glaring at an innocent floorboard, "with the number of humans looking for pointers on how to kill us mer these days, it’d probably be a best-seller.”

Ondolemar considered that for a while, objectively.

"Sadly, that is probably true."

\--O--

Ulfric did not visit Ondolemar for three days, after the Unfortunate Dragonflesh Incident.

Partly, that was because Ulfric was busy rekindling the war (which meant leading raiding parties, since Einar, for no apparent reason, was still refusing to do so himself) and partly that was because Ulfric was picking and training volunteers to help him retake Northwatch Keep. It was certainly not because Ulfric was not sure what, exactly, to say to a Thalmor who had apparently prayed to one of his damned elf gods on Windhelm's behalf, and gotten a positive answer.

Tomorrow, however, Ulfric intended to retake Northwatch, which meant that it was Ulfric's duty to visit his prisoner, just in case there were more details that the high elf hadn't mentioned about the place, and should have. At least, that _had_ been the plan, until Ulfric heard the unmistakable whine of Ambarys Rendar echoing upwards from his jail.

"We arrested Rendar again?" Ulfric said, halting mid-stride at the top of the ramp that led down to his dungeon, frowning at Galmar.

Galmar, in turn, frowned at the Stormcloak on duty; one Hendrick of Riften.

"What? Oh, no. No, he's _visiting_ , so he claims. Says the goldskin's his friend, which figures. Trust a _greyskin_ to hit it off with a Thalmor."

Ulfric considered the pros and cons of a strategic retreat.

"... having a chat with Revyn, this evening, about what sort of potions I should be mixing," Rendar was saying now, "He's not a bad chap, Revyn. He said he'll buy potions if they're decent, even if it is _you_ who's making them, which means we could potentially make a _fortune."_

"Alas, since I loathe alchemy only slightly less than I loathe paperwork, that fortune as as likely to fall into your hands as an autographed copy of your hypothetical biography of the Merethic era."

"But _cousin--,"_ Rendar whined.

"What time is it?" Ulfric demanded.

"Midnight, sir."

Ulfric had rather thought it was.

"How long has he been here?"

"An hour. It's the second night he's come. Yesterday, he stayed all night."

 _My cells are not an inn_ , Ulfric thought, glaring at nothing.

"I'd split the profits with you," Rendar's voice drifted out again, "Sixty-forty, at _least."_

"Sixty-forty, until your illustrious Jarl recollected that allowing prisoners to earn gold is both illegal and highly unprofessional, and confiscated it for the war effort."

"True. He probably _would_ say something like that. Especially if _I_ was making a profit with you. Stingy--," Rendar broke off abruptly, probably remembering just whose cells he was making such unwise remarks in. "Well, anyway, I could keep it _for_ you. You could bribe people, or spend it on new clothes. You could certainly use them. Those ones smell like an Ogrim's backside, no offense."

"I would feel more offended if that were less true. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if Nords have any olfactory senses left at all."

"They don't."

Ulfric glared more intensely, and wondered why he was staying to listen to this at all.

There was a short period of silence.

"I don't suppose you know of any really, _really_ cheap ingredients that can be used to make really, really expensive potions? Not that I don't want a good stash of healing potions handy for when I'm sick, because you've _seen_ how much any _Nord_ cares when my legs are broken, but I don't see why we shouldn't  _also_ be making a profit, here..."

"Not really."

"Not really?"

"Mm."

"You've been in the field  _how_ long, and you don't know one single expensive potion?"

"Expensive to sell and cheap to make, you said. If you were happy to pay a few hundred gold pieces for your ingredients--"

"I'm not."

"Somehow, that does not surprise me."

Ulfric wondered if Rendar intended to stay all of tonight, as well.

 _My cells are not an inn_ , Ulfric thought, for the second time that night.

"... Want me to remove him?" Galmar murmured from beside him.

"On what grounds?"

"Visiting hours are over?"

"We _have_ visiting hours?"

"You're the Jarl. If you say we do, we do."

"I am not abusing my authority just to remove one irritating dark elf," Ulfric said, firmly.

"... If you say so," Galmar shrugged. "We leaving, then?"

"We are. But in an hour, if Rendar has not left, have the Justiciar brought to me to question."

"To the throne room?"

"To my personal chambers. And see to it, if he tries, that Rendar is not allowed to follow him."


	44. With Enemies Like These (Who Needs Friends?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> _**A/N:** In the spirit of Yoda: My update speeds, talk about them we do not. o.o_

##  **With Enemies Like These (Who Needs Friends?)**

**Day One -- 1:15 AM**

"What do you know of Northwatch Keep's defenses?"

"Nothing I feel I need to share with you."

"How many elves guard it?"

"Enough so that no prisoner has ever escaped it."

"What arms do they bear?"

"Their own, I imagine."

"How many mages are stationed there?"

"As many as the First Emissary sees fit to assign."

Ulfric's temper smoldered dangerously.

If his prisoner noticed, he gave no sign of it. The uncooperative elf stood in the coldest part of the room, staring at the frosted glass of Ulfric's window as if this was something it was actually possible to see through. If Ulfric himself had not been standing before it, he wondered, would the high elf have chosen the fireplace to brood over instead?

Neither, likely. Had Ulfric not been here, the wretch would probably have targeted the bed. Talos knew he looked in need of sleep.

"You remember, I trust," the high elf said, dragging him back to the present, "that any and all of what limited information I have is likely months too old to be of any use?"

That was not a no. Evasive, but not a no.

Willing to be persuaded, but demanding, first, that Ulfric put in the effort of persuasion?

Perhaps.

"I have seen cows less set in their routines than the Thalmor," Ulfric told him, grimly. "I will take my chances."

He was met by an unimpressed silence.

"I need not remind you, I trust, that you have gained more from this truce of ours than I. Do not tempt me to break it."

"Unfair, my Jarl. You have _\--,"_

"Warned you once before, I believe, that unless you have decided to kneel to my cause and to me, I am _not your Jarl_."

"Well isn't _someone_ in a pleasant mood this morning," Ondolemar said, snidely.

"My mood would be better, elf, if you would answer me."

"Your mood then, it would seem, is doomed to remain in the darkest depths of Oblivion."

Ulfric felt his temper spark dangerously.

"How long do you intend to sit like a dark elf, doing nothing and playing both sides of this war? This is no game we are playing. You know this."

"Like a _Thalmor,_ I think, is the phrase you are looking for," Ondolemar said, infuriatingly. "The Dunmer of your city do not play sides. To play sides requires an innate level of objectivity and intelligence, both of which they sorely lack."

"Or pretend to lack."

"You truly think the Ambarys Rendar we see is but a facade to hide the true Dunmer, who is secretly, brilliantly devising strategies to manipulate us all? Please, Jarl Ulfric. You will make me laugh, and if I do that, I just might vomit."

"Why?"

There was a slight pause.

"To punish you for interrogating me at this hour." 

"Perhaps you forget that Windhelm is your prison, not your home."

"If I do--," the high elf cut himself off, suddenly, and forced a short laugh.

"If you do?" Ulfric pressed.

"If I do, then I am secretly an Argonian, and _you_ are half-Bosmer."

_What was it that you would not say?_

"... You are trying to distract me."

"Is it working?"

"No," Ulfric said, firmly.

"A pity."

The pity, Ulfric thought, was that the Nine favored a high elf who was so far from being intimidated by his situation as he ought to be that he felt free to waste Ulfric's time with nonsense like this. The greater pity was that Ulfric was letting him.

"In six hours, I intend to leave to assault Northwatch Keep," he said, abruptly.

Ondolemar's shoulders stiffened.

"... I'm sorry?"

"You heard me very well, I think."

"I had hoped I'd misheard you."

"You did not," Ulfric said, and waited.

"... You have remembered, I trust, that Solitude has not yet fallen? That it is not only my kin you will be facing in your assault, but Tullius as well?"

"I am not asking you for advice on how to deal with the Empire. I have handled them well enough on my own these past twenty years."

The high elf's silence had an air in it of one too polite to comment.

Ulfric shifted impatiently.

"Your decision is unwise, Jarl Ulfric." 

"You are not my adviser."

"And yet, here you are, asking me for my advice."

"I am requesting statistics, not advice. I do not ask you tell me how to deal with your kin, or how best to defend myself against them. Numbers, formations, allies, supplies and equipment. These are what I wish to know."

Ondolemar was silent.

"Do you understand what will be waiting for you in there?"

"That is what I am asking you."

"You misunderstand me, I think."

"Then make yourself clearer."

Ondolemar studied the back of his hand.

"I cannot. I gave my word to Galmar, you see, when I was very, very drunk, that I would never raise the subject again. I trust you remember the occasion?"

Ulfric stiffened, and took a hasty step forward, hands clenching.

"Is that sufficiently clear for you, Jarl Ulfric?" Ondolemar said, calmly, turning to look at him.

"It is not your place to worry about such matters," Ulfric said dangerously, and wondered, again,  _what did she write in those files you claim that you never bothered to read?_

"If you die, your successor will undoubtedly lynch me within the week. You will forgive me for feeling some slight concern."

"If you feel such great concern for my safety, then heighten my chance of success by telling me more of that place than just its location. That way, by the time I cut my way through to the stomach of that place, every elf in it will be dead."

Ondolemar's lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

Five minutes passed in silence.

Then, restlessly, the Thalmor began pacing.

"Wear a hole in my carpet--,"

Ondolemar's eyes flicked downwards disdainfully.

"Two feeble strips of rug do _not_ qualify as a carpet."

"I am the Jarl of Windhelm and this is my bedroom. If I say it is a carpet, it is a carpet. And if you wear a hole in it, I will be charging you for the replacement."

"I don't know which is worse. The fact that you are implying you will allow me to earn enough gold in your city to pay such a fine, or the fact that you chose to interrogate me in your bedroom in the first place at all."

"I did not say I would take my payment in gold."

"True. You comfort me, if only slightly. I will go with the latter option."

"I can always return to the dungeon to question you, if this setting is the cause of your unwillingness to speak."

"Can you, I wonder? It has been less than an hour. Ambarys may well be waiting for me. He may well be waiting for _you."_

"... Make up your mind, elf," Ulfric said at last, glaring at him, "If you will tell me, tell me. If not, say so, and I will return you to your cell."

That earned him a strange look.

"You do not intend to use any more... forceful methods to persuade me?"

"If you thought that I would, would you truly have suggested them?"

Ondolemar did not answer.

 _What are you thinking, elf?_ Ulfric wondered.

It was not until the elf said, "I am thinking that you will probably be assassinated before you've reigned a year," that Ulfric realised he'd spoken that question aloud.

"I will not be assassinated."

"You will. A Nord will come weeping with bleeding feet, offering to share the mead his grandmother brewed for you on her death bed, saying his village has fallen to bandits and her dying wish was to see you drink it. Appease her ghost, that Nord will say. Since you are a true Nord, you will naturally not think to do a background check on him. You will drink the lot, and only realise when you begin coughing up blood that he was an Imperial sympathiser and you have just downed poison."

"It occurs to me that your throat fits extremely well inside my hand."

"Your hand is warm, and I am cold. You may demonstrate, provided you resist your natural urge to kill me."

Ulfric sighed, deeply.

"I lied, by the way," Ondolemar said, apropos of nothing.

Of course the elf had.

The question was, which of his numerous lies was he going to amend?

"Your hand is warm, of course, but that was not what I was thinking. I am simply trying to decide if I would prefer it if you died, or if my kin died."

"They will die either way. The only questions are how long it will take, and how many of my own men will die killing them."

The high elf pondered that for a while.

"... Cahlad is going to be staying in Windhelm to watch me, isn't he?"

"That is not your concern."

"... He volunteered, didn't he?"

"That is not your concern either," Ulfric said, more firmly.

And why in Talos' name, Ulfric wondered, watching the tiniest hint of concern flicker across the high elf's face, did this Thalmor keep making them so? Yes, there'd been meals shared between them as well as a good brawl, and yes, Cahlad now spoke of the elf in his reports without animosity, but the Thalmor were not Nords. What friendship there was should have been one-sided, if it existed at all.

The high elf seemed inclined to brood.

Ulfric was inclined to sleep.

"Your Lord will be more sane if some of those making him insane are killed, and this world, according to you, will be more stable if less of Talos' own are tortured to death in it," he said, trying religion.

He began to suspect he should have started with it.

Ondolemar's steps swiftened, as one bothered by some noisome insect, and his mouth hardened.

"Your argument reeks of self-service, but," grudging, this, as if the words were being pulled from his resisting mouth by an invisible hook, "you are not wrong. Certainly that is your Talos' plan-- not that I officially acknowledge he exists and can have plans, you understand," the high elf added, when Ulfric raised an eyebrow.

"If I am not wrong--,"

"If you are not wrong, I should consider the situation  _objectively_ and forget that there was and is such a thing as friendship and family ties between us, as you do daily whenever you encounter on the battlefield a friend from the Great War, and whenever you lose or gain a Hold in your war. Yes. I am aware, objectively, of what must be done. I merely resent the fact that I am the one who is expected to do it. I have been resenting it since Galmar brought me in here and left me alone with you."

Ulfric did not, and would not, feel empathy with a Thalmor.

For Ondolemar the high elf, however, Ulfric might just be able to wait, patiently, in silence.

After a while, the elf returned to the window.

"You have writing materials, I trust?" he said, to the glass.

"I do."

"How convenient. A moment's silence, then, for my conscience, my kin, and quite possibly any lingering affection my Lord yet has for me."

Had he been a Nord--

He wasn't, though, and so Ulfric simply withdrew a quill, dipped it in ink, and waited.

A moment passed. Two.

And then Ondolemar, composed, flat, and more rigid than Ulfric had ever seen him, told the window everything.

Some facts were useful. Some were not. (Ulfric was not sure why there was a cellar-full of mead there; Ondolemar insisted mead was a method of torture.) Ulfric stood, when they were done, and joined him at the window. There was nothing but darkness, of course. Even in daylight, there would have been nothing. Nevertheless, Ulfric waited, and watched.

"If Cahlad dies," Ondolemar said, after a long time, not looking at him, "I will not forgive you."

"If Cahlad dies, he does so doing what is right, for a god he believes in. As do I."

Ondolemar twitched slightly.

"You are... quite irritating, sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

"I only see you sometimes. I have no idea what you are like the rest of the time."

Rotten elf.

Ulfric would tolerate it, though, if only for today.

"I will kill them cleanly," he said, when the silence stretched.

The window's reflection, opaque though it was, told him Ondolemar glanced at him.

"Your kin," Ulfric clarified.

"If you reach them, and if you win against their malachite and their moonstone with your steel and your complete lack of any armor at all, you mean?"

"Yes."

Ondolemar folded his hands neatly behind him, and nodded.

"... Good."

At two, Galmar came to return Ondolemar to his cell.

Ulfric wondered if he ought to be thinking about installing the elf in one of the guest rooms permanently. There was only so long one could lock a Thalmor one was allowing to run loose in the Grey Quarter-- one whose magic was unbound, and who had free access to both weapons and gold-- inside a cell that he'd already demonstrated he was perfectly capable of walking straight out of, before the whole matter became farcical.

**Day One -- 10:00 PM**

Ambarys stood outside Ondolemar's cell, armed with flin and a blanket.

Ondolemar frowned at him.

The first visit, three days ago, Ondolemar had understood. But yesterday? Today?

"There's no need to look at me like that," Ambarys snapped defensively, wrapping his blanket firmly about his shoulders and sitting down on-- Ondolemar suppressed a brief, illogical, twitch-- Ulfric's stool, "We're business partners now, remember? It's my duty to visit you every evening. It's not like any more customers are going to come to my Cornerclub even if I do stay. The only thing that will turn up is nightmares, and I'm _sick_ of spending my nights jumping whenever the fire pops."

... Odd.

"Are you hoping I will introduce you to a Nord willing to knock you out, cousin?" Ondolemar said, trying to make sense of things.

"No, I am  _not._ I don't like violence, and even if I did, I don't trust Nords. They hate me, remember? If I invited one to hit me, they'd probably use it as an excuse to kill me. I bet they wouldn't receive so much as a rap over the knuckles for it, either."

"I see," Ondolemar said, nodding.

The matter was clear enough. He understood the situation perfectly.

And so, Ondolemar stood, beckoned Ambarys close to the bars, and directed his attention to a piece of mold on the floor.

"That's what you wanted me to see?" Ambarys said, kneeling to squint at it, "But that's just--,"

Ondolemar delivered a swift, brutal blow to the back of his neck, and-- after a moment of consideration-- retrieved his bear pelt from its corner, and pillowed Ambarys' unconscious head on it. Business partners were business partners, after all.

\--O--

**Day Two-- 2:00 AM**

"I hate you," Ambarys said.

"You should have been clearer, if that was not your objective," Ondolemar sniffed, unrepentant. "I assume you did sleep well?"

Ambarys sent him a filthy look, and returned to massaging his neck.

Ondolemar refused to feel guilty.

"... Where'd you get that?" Ambarys said after a while, pointing at the bear pelt.

"A gift, from Jarl Ulfric."

"Do you want to teach me how to punch things in such a way that I hurt something that _isn't_ my own hand, so I can knock _you_ out?" Ambarys said, very kindly. "Solely in the interests of giving youa good night's sleep, of course. Not for any other reason."

Ondolemar arched an eyebrow at him.

"Yes?" Ambarys pressed, hopefully.

"No."

Ambarys scowled at Ondolemar for a while, before sighing.

"All pettiness aside, though--,"

"Is that possible for you, I wonder?" Ondolemar mused.

"If I concentrate hard enough, and if neck-hitting Altmer don't try too hard to side-track me from it," Ambarys said pointedly.

"I was not aware that I needed to try."

"I am going to ignore that, though _am_ going to make you mix me up a potion for my neck when you get let out. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, you really ought to be taking more care of yourself then you are. I mean, have you _seen_ your face recently?"

"Your concern is both unwanted and unneeded," Ondolemar said coldly.

"Well _excuse me_ for caring that you look like a frostbite spider's been feeding on you," Ambarys huffed, sounding hurt.

Ondolemar sent him a withering glare.

Ambarys met it sullenly.

Business partners, Ondolemar reminded himself.

"If Auri-El has not relented before I feel myself in danger of dying," he gritted out, at last, "Which at the moment, I do  _not,_ I will ask Galmar or Ulfric to knock me out, not you."

"You think they'd do anything but laugh in your face if you asked them nicely to do anything?"

"Whatever made you imagine I would be asking nicely?"

"..."

Ondolemar, generously, spelled it out.

"I think dear  _Galmar_  will be every inch as considerate as either of us could desire, once I inform him that his little brother is a milk-drinker and his mother was a goat."

Ambarys winced.

"Feeling squeamish, cousin?"

"A bit. He'll cream you."

"And I will get twenty hours of sleep instead of four."

"If you live."

"I will live. I have angered him before, and he has not killed me yet."

"You haven't called his mother a goat yet, either."

"True," Ondolemar allowed. "But comfort yourself with the reflection that even if I do _not_ live, _you_ will never pray to my Lord Auri-El again, my Lord, in his current state, will forget your existence, and Stendarr will find an Altmer far more suitable that I will ever be upon whom to foist the task of fixing the mess we have made of our faith. Your problems-- those I have caused, anyway-- will be over."

"... If I had a cushion, I'd throw it at you right now."

Ondolemar was not sure what to make of that.

He remained silent.

After a while, Ambarys left.

Ondolemar paced, slept, and woke choking on blood; an unfortunate side-effect of biting through part of one's tongue.

 _I am sorry, my father,_ Ondolemar thought, healing himself and scrubbing his face clean, _To my kin, I am sorry, and to you. I know why you hated men then, and why you punish me now. But can you not see why I do not want them dead? Can you not see that their descendants now are no more them than I am you?_

Auri-El did not reply.

\--O--

**Day Two-- 7:00 AM**

"Do you know what the best thing is about Civil Wars, dragons, and bandit raids?" Ambarys said, wiping a rickety table with a grimy cloth.

"That they tend to overshadow smaller concerns, to the point where none of your patrons mind drinking at tables still grimed by last week's stew?"

"That too. But more importantly, do you know how much even the most _meager_  healing potions cost for the common folk, when bandits keep raiding shipments and the Imperials and the Stormcloaks keep requisitioning them? I'm thinking of purchasing a recipe, you know. There has to be something easier to grind up than wheat seeds to make them from."

Ondolemar seriously contemplated turning around and leaving the New Gnisis Cornerclub, and asking Jorleif for a bottle of mead.

\--O--

**Day Two-- 11:00 PM**

That night Ambarys did bring a cushion. He also brought a pitcher of water, two cups, and one blanket.

Odd, Ondolemar thought, watching him. It was not until Ambarys rolled his eyes and spelled it out aloud that he realised that one of those cups and most of that water was for him.

Ondolemar stared at the innocuous ceramic mug, feeling curiously flat-footed.

"... You liked being knocked out that much?"

"Maybe," Ambarys admitted. "At least now my neck's better, anyway. There's also the fact that we made 60 gold pieces today, so I'm feeling _very_ fond of you right now. I'm feeling sort of fond of your god, too, because if he hadn't gone insane, you wouldn't have befriended me, and I wouldn't have made more gold in one day than I usually make in six. I've already told him so, in case you're wondering."

Ondolemar groaned, flopped his head back against the cell wall, and closed his eyes.

"What's the matter?" Ambarys said, sounding genuinely concerned.

"I am wondering, cousin, why it is that I even _try."_

\--O--

**Day Three-- 5:43 AM**

"There is no news yet from the valiant Jarl Ulfric?" Ondolemar said to Jorleif.

It was a testament to the man's status as an experienced professional that he eyed Ondolemar askance, and said firmly that the Jarl's private business was not the business of prisoners.

\--O--

**Day Four-- 12:30 AM**

"It's funny, isn't it? When I was young, I never thought House Hlaalu would fall from power."

When Ambarys Rendar had been young, Ondolemar thought, tuning him out, Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil had probably been extremely fond of him, because for all Ambarys' protestations, he seemed, at heart, to be a mer who believed in rules and regulations and higher authorities in general. He'd probably never backstabbed a superior or missed a mandatory Temple service in his lifetime.

A small voice that sounded like Lord Stendarr reminded Ondolemar that those were not negative traits.

That might be true, Ondolemar thought back at it, but what use was it, when at the moment, Ambarys seemed to be directing that devotion not at Auri-El, who actually needed it, but at Ondolemar himself?

The small voice had nothing to say to that.

Ondolemar suppressed a sigh, and rested his head against the icy stone behind him.

How in Oblivion did one redirect a devotion one had not the slightest clue how one had earned in the first place? The Dominion might have known. The Dominion had had many useful things to say about how best to handle one's subordinates. Unfortunately, the only solutions Ondolemar could remember revolved around retraining, reassigning and reeducation. If those did not work... But they always worked, didn't they?

They worked or the subordinate died, and everyone moved on and forgot about it.

Ondolemar suppressed another sigh.

"Do you remember when gold used to be called septims?" Ambarys was saying, now.

Ondolemar, listening with half an ear, assumed that that was rhetorical.

It was; Ambarys rambled on.

_This would be easier, my Lord, if you would stop actively discouraging him._

Auri-El did not deign to respond. He would, no doubt, when Ondolemar slept, which was why Ondolemar was trying not to sleep. He'd been trying for the last 24 hours, and so far, he'd managed it. That, too, was problematic though. If Auri-El was sending him nightmares because he was displeased-- (Did that mean Ulfric was doing well, or was the matter not related at all?)-- it was probably Ondolemar's unenviable duty to endure that displeasure. Nothing good ever came of avoiding disciplinary meetings, after all.

This time, Ondolemar didn't bother suppressing his sigh.

"I know, right? That's House Telvanni for you though," Ambarys said, sagely.

They'd returned to the Great Houses, had they?

Ondolemar wondered which house Ambarys Rendar belonged to.

A moment's thought sufficed to answer the question. It could only have been Hlaalu. Gold-driven, Empire-loving, racially-tolerant Hlaalu.

Would that Lord Stendarr were here to tell him if this method of his was actually working. It was not that Ondolemar minded doubting himself. Doubt was unpleasant to deal with and left a sour taste on his tongue, but in the end, doubt could be ignored or it could be crushed beneath his heel like rotting snowberries. In and of itself, doubt was endurable.

It was just that Ondolemar did not want to wait another five centuries before either Auri-El or Lord Stendarr bothered to tell him his plan was shaping itself into something as beautiful as a lump of air-pocked, sodden clay being shaped on a pottery wheel by a troll.

A dark thought.

Ondolemar brooded on it, hating it.

It was not until whole minutes had passed that he realised that Ambarys had fallen silent.

"Is there a problem, cousin?"

"No, not really. I was just wondering... why are we doing this? Really?"

"You are doing it because you like earning 60 gold pieces each day. I am doing it because I actually care about my Lord."

"Why?"

"Because he created Nirn and us, and since I happen to _like_ existing, I'm grateful to him for it."

"That's so..."

"True?"

"Trite, I was going to say."

Trite, was it? What did Ambarys want, then, if not that? Fanciful tales, of times where convenient lightning bolts had struck down seemingly-overwhelming foes? Times where one had given up all hope, only for Auri-El to intercede directly in some fantastical way to restore one's faith in life again? Miracle piles of gold, appearing overnight beneath one's pillow?

"Do you like music?" Ondolemar said, at last.

"Sometimes. When the musicians can play well or sing well. Why?"

"Because I am overtired, and I am not up to the task of explaining to a Dunmer why I love my Lord as I remember him. And so you are going to have the pleasure of hearing me sing. Bask in it. You will not understand a word of it, since the probability that you learned Aldmeri is about as high as the probability that I am secretly an Argonian, but listen despite that. It is a song my Lord wrote for us, long ago, and while it may not speak to your ears, it may yet speak to your heart."

"... How do you know he wrote it," Ambarys said, deeply skeptical.

"Because Xarxes told me so," Ondolemar shrugged, and sang.

_Remember._


	45. Divine Favors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
>  ** _Warnings:_** Extremely loose interpretation of Tamrielic Lore.

## Divine Favors

The journey northwest was a slow one.

The air was frigid, the water worse, and at night-- the only time Ulfric was willing to travel, on day two, when he'd crossed into Haafingar's seas-- mists gathered that made it all but impossible to steer by the stars. More than once, Ulfric had been forced to correct himself, some islet or the looming shoreline warning him he'd drifted dangerously far from his desired course.

He remained undaunted.

Had he not been prepared for this much, he'd not have started in the first place. The Sea of Ghosts had been named so for a reason, after all.

They took it in turns rowing, Ulfric and his Stormcloaks. When one Nord's hands grew too numb or too blistered to continue, another took over and the healers attended him. In parts where the pack-ice was too thick to take a boat through, they hefted the boat up and walked. On another mission, Ulfric would have sung of victory and acts of valor; such songs warmed spirit and body both. On another mission, he might have brought wood and lit fires at night to drive off the night's cold.

This was a covert mission, however. Ulfric had no plans to weaken his already small force by drawing Tullius' attention.

Talos willing, they would not meet any of the Empire's men before they landed on the North Coast of Haafingar, assuming they encountered any at all. Torsten claimed he had been subtle in his building. Ulfric had never attacked Tullius by sea. It was natural that the Empire would see scant cause to waste what resources they had left on sending regular patrols through the pack-ice.

So Ulfric hoped, Talos willing.

Sometimes, he felt the weight of a glance from a Nord who sailed with him, bright with a fury that was hotter than dragonflame.

All of those who'd volunteered had lost someone, or known someone who'd lost someone, to the Thalmor. All of those who'd volunteered would fight to the death, Ulfric knew, if that would mean losing one less Nord to the atrocities of Northwatch Keep.

 _Talos be with me_ , Ulfric thought, watching the lights of Solitude shine dimly four miles south in the distance.

 _Grant me victory, or death. Do not let this be in vain._  

\--O--

"Sir," Legate Rikke said to Tullius, who was busy writing a letter explaining to Cyrodiil for the fifth time just why securing a stable supply line through High Rock was not just an extremely good idea, but an absolute imperative, "We've had word from a scout. Apparently, Stormcloaks have been sighted in Haafingar's waters, sailing west."

Abruptly, Tullius stood, paperwork forgotten.

"How many?"

"Just the one boat, sir. The size of a fishing craft, or perhaps slightly smaller."

Tullius relaxed, just slightly. One small boat did not sound like an invasion force.

"A stealth strike?"

"I'm not sure, sir. But..." Legate Rikke hesitated.

"Speak."

"We've also had word from one of the spies we sent to Eastmarch."

"Go on."

"He said that the Stormcloaks aren't targeting Solitude, on this assult. The rumor is that they're targeting the Thalmor."

The Thalmor?

The Stormcloaks, who'd spoken of driving the Thalmor from Skyrim for more than a decade, were, for the first time, actually trying to do it?

Tullius considered that thought. Ulfric hated the Thalmor (so he claimed, anyway) but he feared them too, or had seemed to at High Hrothgar. Would a man who'd turned traitor for the Thalmor once before truly do something as suicidally reckless as cross into a hold controlled by the Empire, with ten troops at most, to attack the Aldmeri Dominion by sea? This, from a man who could have marched the united armies of seven holds north, and-- Tullius, an objective man, could admit this truth, if only to himself-- quite possibly decimated them?

"... Do you believe him?"

"Are you asking me as a soldier, sir?"

Tullius nodded curtly.

"Let's say that I am. Do you think this is likely to be a strike at the Thalmor, or at the capital?"

"As a soldier, I can't deny that the latter is a risk."

Tullius nodded again.

"And as a Nord?"

"As a Nord, sir, I don't believe that the Stormcloaks will attack Solitude in earnest before the Rift is in their hands. Ulfric knows well how to sway the hearts of his soldiers. Solitude is the heart of Skyrim; thus, for a victory to hold any symbolic meaning, it must be the last to fall. There is no honor in allowing an enemy to bleed to death to avoid their dying blows. Honor lies in striking them cleanly through the heart."

Nords. Even after months in Skyrim, Tullius did not understand them.

He did, however, trust Rikke, and the Stormcloaks had made no strikes at Solitude this far.

"Is Ulfric Stormcloak leading them?" he said.

"Yes, sir."

Tullius' spirits, low since the ending of the truce, lifted slightly.

If Ulfric Stormcloak was stupid enough to leave Windhelm and come here personally, then Tullius had a chance he'd not had since Helgen to see an end to the drawn-out, senseless slaughter that was this war. And it did need to end, and soon. The Empire desperately needed to rest and gather its strength, because none of the Thalmor Tullius had dealt with in Skyrim had been subtle about the fact that the Aldmeri Dominion was resting up for a second war.

That Ulfric might succeed in driving the Thalmor from Haafingar was a thought that occurred only to be dismissed.

There was not the slightest chance that either the Thalmor Embassy or Northwatch Keep were going to fall to a rag-tag handful of ill-trained Nords on a fishing boat, so the real difficulty, Tullius decided, was going to be extracting the Nord and getting him safely into Imperial custody before the Thalmor buried him inside their torture chambers. Once that was done, all that would remain would be carting him off to Cyrodiil for a good, clean, public execution.

Tullius stewed on that thought for a while.

Perhaps, remembering Helgen, an immediate execution might be more appropriate.

"Where is he targeting?"

"Northwatch Keep, sir."

"... Who else knows about this?" Tullius said, at last.

"Just you, me, and the spy, sir."

"... You still have the letter?"

"I do, sir," Legate Rikke said, passing it to him.

Tullius considered it for a long moment.

Then he held the parchment edge above his favorite candle, and watched it smolder. The Theives Guild was on the rise, after all, and Tullius wanted no one snooping at this letter.

An odd expression flickered across Legate Rikke's face.

"General... will you be alright if you do this?"

"We're obligated to let the Thalmor roam freely in our holdings, not defend them or warn them of their enemies. Organise the men, Legate. I want two units lying in ambush--," a moment's consideration of the map of Skyrim before him--,"on the south and east passes. When the fighting starts, search the shoreline and secure any boats. When the Thalmor have taken the fight out of him and whatever force he has, we move. And Legate? Tell the men I don't care if we take him back as a prisoner or a corpse."

There was a slight, almost imperceptible pause.

"Yes, sir," Legate Rikke nodded, and left.

\--O--

One of the disadvantages of inheriting Lorkhan's mantle was that one did not possess one's own private, personal and imminently desirable pocket of Aetherius. This was, Akatosh had assured Talos 596 years ago (or at the dawn of existence, depending on how one chose to measure time), not an oversight on the part of the Eight, or any indication that they thought less of him, but a simple consequence of the fact that Lorkhan's preferred plane of existence had been Nirn.

According to Akatosh, this wasn't a bad thing, since it meant that Talos did not need things like Towers to know where Nirn was.

According to Akatosh, Talos also wouldn't notice the absence of a plane much, since he'd be living with Akatosh.

Then, Talos had been flattered. (He'd also been relieved not to be dead.)

It had only been later that Talos had realised that without a plane in Aetherius, one could not provide the souls of one's servants with a nice, welcoming afterlife when they died. Thus, if one cared about one's mortals (and Talos did) one had, perforce, to encourage them to worship anothergod who did rule a realm in Aetherius. A god like Akatosh, in fact. Talos, a general at heart, (albeit mostly because few remembered that the Mantella was comprised of three souls, not one), could appreciate a clever strategy when he saw one. And so, instead of marrying into a realm as Shor had, Talos had accepted his role as a general and taken pride in his loyalty to the Time-God.

There were times he regretted that loyalty.

Times like now, in fact, when he sat stewing in Stendarr's garden, drinking tea, (Stendarr did not raise the subject, but Talos was keenly aware anyway that the faith he swallowed was not his own) because twenty years ago, Akatosh had regretfully expelled him from his plane of palaces of stained-glass windows and spires, and told him that since their Empire had signed a handful of papers, Talos wasn't going to be allowed inside Akatosh's plane until Auri-El said so.

Needless to say, Auri-El had _not_ said so.

Auri-El still hated both of them for the Numidium Incident, which was fair. He also hated them for seeking to perpetuate cultural homogenisation in his homeland which Talos found less fair, since it was Mara, Zenithar and Stendarr who were mostly responsible for that crime. If asked (though there was not the slightest chance Auri-El would) Talos would, in fact, have agreed that the act was deplorable. There had been a time when he'd felt differently (so Zurin told him, anyway) but now Talos felt very strongly that traditions ought to be preserved where possible, and honored for the memories they held of times and peoples long gone.

"There's nothing wrong with teaching people to value what should be valued," Stendarr defended himself, mildly, "When customs go against the principles of justice, love, and mercy and compassion, it is not kindness to continue them just because they have been occurring for the last few thousand years. It is not the role of the Divines to encourage needless suffering."

"It is not, is it? And what does your brother cause _but_ needless suffering?" Talos countered.

There was a short pause.

"Sunlight," Stendarr said.

"He does not _cause_ that."

"Semantics, Talos. One has but to look at what happened to Skyrim's weather when my brother withdrew from it after the Falmer debacle to own that it is he who chooses what the sun's warmth does and does not touch." 

Talos brooded, refusing to own anything of the sort.

Talos did not like Auri-El.

(A lie.) Not wholly, though, for while it was true that Talos the once-mortal did not comprise all of Talos the god, he still comprised most of him. (If he chose, perhaps, he could have crushed the parts of himself that were Zurin and Ysmir completely, but he did not chose. To understand those who prayed to him was to know law and chaos, evil and good. Without counsel, it was too easy to forget, as Auri-El had, what he was.)

Zurin was not grateful for this restraint. He also did not hate Auri-El. Zurin, former-battlemage that he was,  _admired,_  because the god was, in the end, doing an admirable job of starving them, despite the handicap of his amnesia.(Talos blamed this lapse in judgement on the fact that those who did remember Zurin were mostly elderly Altmeri or Altmeri-taught librarians.)

Ysmir, his other third, pitied. Pitied, and hummed The Song of Pelinal, and wondered if the reason the Eight had allowed them to become one god all those years ago instead of sending them to Oblivion was because they’d foreseen the elf-god’s amnesia and had wanted to give Auri-El someone to devour for this age that was not them.

 _You wrong the Eight,_ Talos thought firmly.

Zurin's scorn was instant and derisive.

 _You wrong them,_ Talos thought, again.  _This is nothing like Jyggalag and Sheogorath. None could have predicted this, not even Akatosh. Had he known, he would have ended the threat long before he ceased to be able to. He loves the Empire as much as we do._

 _Which is less than it once was, now more than half of our servants believe in succession,_ Ysmir pointed out.

 _Yes,_ Zurin agreed, _And_ _t_ _his **is** the god who has been allowing his son to eat **our** souls._

There were times Talos envied the Tribunal. Though they slew each other in the end, there was much to be said for separate bodies and separate minds with which to think things.

 _Self-pity does not suit us,_ Zurin sneered.

 _Yes, at least they are not being eaten anymore,_ Ysmir thought, bracingly.

"In conclusion," Stendarr interposed, "I think we can all agree that more than one situation has been badly handled by everyone."

"Easy for you to say. _You_ are not starving because more than half of the few who do believe in you will not pray to you for aught but victory in battle and an easy passage to Sovngarde."

Stendarr made a sympathetic noise.

Talos sighed, deeply.

"How did matters come to this?"

"You brought the Numidium to Alinor. You must admit that it was very badly done of you."

Talos could concede that it was.

 _We are drinking too much of Stendarr's tea_ , Zurin warned him.

That, too, Talos could concede.

Reluctantly, Talos set his cup down.

"I have a favor to ask of you, Stendarr."

Stendarr made an interrogative noise, as if he truly could not see the favor for which Talos was going to ask sitting clearly at the forefront of his thoughts.

"My champion intends to attack your brother's servants."

"That sounds like very him," Stendarr agreed.

"I would like your blessing to mingle with mine, to grant them victory."

"... I really am far happier sitting on the fence in this," Stendarr admitted. "Can you not ask Kyne?"

"Kyne is busy converting dragons to her service," Talos glowered. "She is of no help at all."

Stendarr took another sip of tea.

"Do you not trust him to triumph well enough on his own?"

Above them, clouds gathered, gloomy and resigned, covering the sun.

"... You do not, I see," Stendarr sighed. "Very well. I will have a word with Mara, and ask her to have a word with Kyne. She will help me. She owes me a favor or three, I seem to recall."

Of course she did.

"One day, you will be made to get off that fence you love so much, Stendarr."

"One day, perhaps," Stendarr smiled, eyes distant, "But on that day, I will have to choose between my brother and my half-brother, both of whom I love, and you, who have been my friend and fellow champion for the cause of men since Time began. I pray to Anu that that day will never come."

\--O--

Three days after his departure from Windhelm, Ulfric sighted the little jetty in the distance that his prisoner had assured him lay less than a mile from Northwatch Keep. He set little store by the assurance that, "it should be safe enough to leave your vessel there; we do not patrol there."

That Ondolemar knew of the jetty meant that the rest of the Thalmor did too.

No Imperial troops waited for them. It seemed Ulfric's choice to travel only at night once they'd entered Haafingar's seas had been a wise one.

"Guard our escape, Braigh," Ulfric commanded the youngest volunteer, and the least experienced. And then, when the girl looked mutinous, "That is an order from your Jarl."

"... Yes, Jarl Ulfric."

"You're getting soft," Galmar said, but softly, as they made their way towards the thin path that led southeast.

"We'll see who's soft soon enough," Ulfric said, grimly.

_If you lied to me, elf-- if that fortress is not where it should be--_

A distant, too-familiar Shout echoed in the skies, accompanied by the distant light of fire, less than half a mile distant. Smaller flecks of light, blue and red, flashed in answer, mingling almost purple above them.

"You don't think...?" Galmar said, running his hands up and down the haft of his great-axe.

Ulfric _did_ think.

Sure enough, a few hundred meters on, the crumbling ruin that was Northwatch Keep came into view. On the battlements, Thalmor in robes and shining mail hurled spells at a huge, rust-scaled dragon, which seared those unprotected by wards in return with fire. That much, Ulfric had expected. What he'd  _not_ expected was the second dragon, half a mile south, breathing waves frost at what looked very much like a much-beleaguered Imperial ambush.

"We letting them fight it out?" Galmar said, coming to stand by Ulfric's side.

"I think it is _you_ who are softening, friend."

Galmar grinned through his beard, white and fierce.

"We taking the dragon first, the Empire's dogs or the goldskins?"

"The godskins," Ulfric said, "Since they do more harm to the world by existing in it than the others will ever do."

"On three?"

"On three," Ulfric agreed, and charged.


	46. Remember, Remember (The 5th of Sun's Dawn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.
> 
> _**A/N:** Thank you so much to everyone who's still reading this fic despite my erratic updates and delays  <3 _

## Remember, Remember (The 5th of Sun's Dawn)

Lieutenant Kinnariel hated Skyrim.

This was not strange. Like every well-trained Thalmor, Kinnariel hated a great many things, some of which made sense (Talos, Daedra, and the school of Necromancy) and some of which didn't, but needed to be hated just the same (even if one couldn't help wondering, sometimes, just why Thalmor needed to hate things like sensible, warm fur, which they could otherwise have been wearing instead of their cold metal armor during their eight-hour shifts in the snow).

Still, even by her standards, Skyrim today was proving particularly unbearable.

An Ancient Dragon was Shouting at her husband (Nilfarion's ward was holding up well enough, but Kinnariel worried about him anyway), she only had ten arrows left, and both of the barricades that had been dragged across to block the entrance to Northwatch Keep had just been sent flying by a Nord who was, unmistakably, the traitor-heretic Ulfric Stormcloak.

It was necessary to quell an unprofessional desire to blame Auri-El for this mess.

Kinnariel was a professional, however, and so she did quell it, and approached her commander, who was busy shooting lightning balls at the dragon circling above them in the sky.

"Sir," she said, "How should we engage the Nords?”

Commander Falathion paused in his efforts, and glanced behind him.

“Bandits?"

“Stormcloaks, sir. The Jarl of Windhelm is leading them."

Falathion swore, softly.

"Really, of all the possible, _conceivable_ days to choose--,"

"Quite, sir."

The Nords appeared to have targeted a Bosmer archer in a united effort of nine to one, and seemed to be doing their best to slice him apart. Possibly, Kinnariel thought, that had something to do with the fact that one Nord was lying on her back on the snow with an arrow through her eye. Nords, among their many flaws, were known to be a sentimental race.

"Are those all there are, Lieutenant?”

"So far."

There was a garbled shriek as the unfortunate Bosmer was decapitated.

Falathion cursed again.

"... Give the order for a retreat. Auri-El willing, we can bar the doors and let the dragon deal with them. If not, we'll deal with the barbarians inside Northwatch. Oh, and Kinnariel?" Falathion added, almost as an afterthought, his gaze lingering on the archer’s corpse, "When we retreat, make sure the _Bosmer_ are the ones you order to bring up our rear."

Kinnariel didn't point out that she would have done that anyway.

She was, after all, a professional.

She nodded, saluted, and began barking orders.

\--O--

Zeymahzeimzin, like most dovahs, respected power.

When Alduin had been the most powerful god around, Zeymahzeimzin had been perfectly happy obeying his orders. These orders, for the most part, had been to engage the lesser beings in conversation (some of whom had survived that and some of whom hadn’t) and to take part in calculated acts of clever, ruthless destruction.

Those had been good times. Unfortunately, Alduin wasn't here to give orders like that anymore, which was a pity because Zeymahzeimzin had enjoyed destroying things.

His new god, Kyne, did not approve of destruction. This made her unenjoyable to serve, but since her champion had defeated Alduin, Zeymahzeimzin was doing his best to serve her anyway, at least until Alduin got back from whatever time stream he’d been banished to _this_ time. (Kyne, Zeymahzeimzin was aware, knew this, but Kyne was gambling that by the time that happened, Zeymahzeimzin would actually be happy serving her. She was wrong, but he allowed her her delusions.)

Zeymahzeimzin had been meditating (sort of, but mostly dozing) on a rocky outcrop above Markarth when Kyne had spoken to him.

 _I’d like you to attack some elves_ , Kyne had said.

She sounded vaguely harassed, but Zeymahzeimzin hadn't stopped to ask her if she meant it. He’d asked where, and flown to this northern shoreline with the strength and fury of a raging blizzard in the depths of winter.

He _liked_ burning elves.

He liked burning most things, actually, and as a result, this morning had been one of the best since Alduin’s defeat. Zeymahzeimzin had just finished swallowing an elf-- the foolish mortal had been unwary enough to try attacking him with a sword when Zeymahzeimzin landed; an amusing mistake-- when he heard a roar heralding the arrival of more mortals.

_Truly, you are kind this morning, Mistress._

_They are not your targets,_ _Zeymahzeimzin_ , Kyne told him, firmly.

A pity. They sounded like Nords.

Zeymahzeimzin liked burning Nords, too.

He had resigned himself to a day of burning only elves, when unexpectedly, interestingly, someone who was _not_ the Dovahkiin spoke, using _Thu'um_. Theirs was no roar, as a dovah or the Dovahkiin could have produced. Theirs was the shout of a young one, unskilled and laboriously taught, who had petulantly decided to announce anyway to the world that their Will was absolute, their tenacity indomitable, and that as hard as the world buffeted them, so they would, in turn, buffet the world back.

In short, someone weak, but still, comparatively, much stronger in spirit than the elves with their petty magicks that shattered against Zeymahzeimzin’s hide like toothpicks, had issued a challenge.

FUS RO DAH.

 _Ignore it,_ Kyne told him.

 _I don’t want to,_ Zeymahzeimzin thought back. _His Thu'um is **not** stronger._

Kyne was displeased. Zeymahzeimzin, wisely, wavered, sensing the strength of her will. And then the little mortal issued his challenge again, sending no less than four of _Zeymahzeimzin’s_ prey flying. Outrage filled Zeymahzeimzin. Those elves were _his_ to burn! Kyne had said so! Anger followed that outrage, and through it all, there was the familiar, joyful rush of destruction.

The little mortal truly thought he could push harder than a dovah, did he? Such arrogance! But Zeymahzeimzin would teach him. He would soon learn that the dovah were pushed by no one but other dovah, the Dovahkiin, and the gods.

Kyne spoke, but Zeymahzeimzin ignored her.

The little mortal was swinging now at another of Zeymahzeimzin’s elves.

Zeymahzeimzin reversed direction, and hovered above him in the sky.

“YOL TOOR SHUL.”

_Burn._

\--O--

“Oh dear,” said Kyne, to her reflection in the mirror.

Mara, brushing Kyne's hair in smooth, even strokes, hummed her agreement.

\--O--

It had, Ulfric thought, seemed like a logical thing to do at the time, Shouting.

His force was but ten Nords strong, they had no battering ram, and there were two barricades of spiked wood blocking the arch that led into Northwatch Keep. Instead of wasting time cutting it to pieces or dragging it aside, charging at the barriers full-tilt and Shouting them into the wall across the other side of the courtyard had, Ulfric thought, been plain, old-fashioned, common sense. When the Thalmor had formed ranks, Ulfric had seen no reason not to Shout those ranks apart. This attack was a raid, not a siege.

Unfortunately, Ulfric had not allowed for the fact that Shouting in front of a dragon busy attacking someone else was extremely likely to make it stop attacking them, and start attacking him.

 _Only_ him, which was fortunate; Galmar was doing an adequate job of leading the men and overwhelming the Thalmor position. Still… Ulfric liked melee combat, and he liked good, Nordic steel. He did _not_ like firing elven arrows at Thalmor from elven bows while skulking beneath the cover of crumbling shelves of stone, because his options were using the weapons of a dead Thalmor or using no weapons at all.

The ground shook beneath him.

Ulfric, well-taught by Helgen, pressed himself more firmly against the wall behind him and braced himself as the world shook and exploded into a blinding furnace of red-white light. Inches in front of him, the snow blistered, melting into puddles of steaming water. Half a minute passed, and then the dragon gave a peeved sounding roar and launched itself into the air again, circling above him. It wanted a fight, did it? Ulfric sympathised, but that did not up its priority on today's death list.

_Go and bother Einar, lizard, if it is conversation you are after._

The dragon, disobligingly, failed to do anything of the sort.

Damned beast.

Ulfric moved when the flames ended, boots squelching, making for the next patch of cover and side-stepping a glass-tipped arrow that flew dangerously close to his thigh. Encouragingly, the Thalmor seemed to be retreating. Only three archers remained, doing their best to delay the Stormcloak attack.

The dragon Shouted again.

Two Thalmor were left, when the fire cleared. Then one. Then none.

“Well, that went better than I thought it might,” Galmar said, when the last elf fell, motioning the Stormcloaks who weren’t tending to the wounded to stay well back, and joining Ulfric with a wary look to the skies, “We’re three men down though; they’ll need more than one healing potion to get ‘em upright, and Naila’s lost an eye, poor girl. Should have thought to bring a battering ram though. Damned goldskins’ve barred the gate on us.”

Ulfric felt a lick of anger, born of impatience.

“How long will it take you to break through?”

“It’s wood and steel. I’d say it depends a lot on how long  _you_ feel like standing in front of it with a potion or two of fire resistance in you and your newest admirer breathing at you.”

Ulfric swore softly.

“… I would give much to hear you repeat that advice, my friend, were you his target, and not I.”

Galmar snorted, and then cursed as another jet of flame poured down from the sky.

"Hotter than Hammerfell in summertime, isn't he?"

"No hotter than any other dragon," Ulfric shrugged.

"True enough. Your furs--"

"Are burning," Ulfric said, snuffing the embers out. "Yes. I know. I really should look into getting Sifnar an apprentice, before he grows too old to train one."

"Before he murders you in your sleep, you mean."

The dragon swooped, Shouting again.

"Best keep clear," Ulfric said, when it went, uncorking a potion of fire resistance he'd intended to save for Northwatch's battlemages, "And when it breathes, Galmar, make it clear to the soldiers that _no one_ is to fire arrows at it. I want its attention to stay on me and only me until we’re through that gate.”

“Aye, I’ll tell them.”

Wordlessly, Ulfric clapped Galmar on the shoulder, drank, and moved.

Talos blessed him; the dragon did follow him instead of switching targets. The gates buckled under the its first Shout. Ulfric snuffed out a patch of smoldering mustache, and gave the doors an experimental push. They held, but barely. Talos willing, one more Shout would do it. Then, all that would be left would be destroying the entirety of the armed forces of Northwatch Keep.

Simple, straightforward battle.

Ulfric’s gaze lingered on a dead Thalmor, female, whose white-blond hair was stained with blood, and who watched him with empty, gold eyes.

_Do not let me remember. Your children, my brothers and my sisters, need me._

_Do not let me falter in there, no matter what I see._

\--O--

"You," Rolff said, bleary-eyed and drunk.

"Me," Ondolemar agreed, resigned, double-checking for the third time that there were no witnesses to the scene he planned to enact in this cramped, smelly back-ally. (His guard ought to have been a witness, of course. Windhelm's standards, however, currently stood knee-high to a skeever, and so that guard was still waiting outside the New Gnisis Cornerclub and would probably not realise for a good two hours that Ondolemar had climbed out a window.)

"... You sh'd be bashed up, goldskin. 'Cause you're a goldskin."

"Lamentably, Rolff, I am inclined to agree with you."

"... eh?"

"Since I am an Altmer," Ondolemar explained, kindly, "I deserve to be beaten into unconsciousness by you."

"Well... s'long as y'know," Rolff said, seeming dangerously inclined to amble onward.

Ondolemar glared at him. Rolff, oblivious, took another swig of mead.

"Milk drinker."

"Watch't, elf. I'll be fifteen next year, and then you'll pay f'r sayin' lies like that."

This was, Ondolemar thought, not really working. How to ask without asking, though? It was bad enough that he'd allowed things to slip this far without doing something about them. Galmar would have served him better. Galmar would have struck him just for thinking things without putting him to the trouble of trying to imagine just what one needed to say to induce a Nord to beat one senseless. Ondolemar missed Galmar.

Rolff, Ondolemar thought shrewdly, probably missed his brother too.

 _"Galmar_ is a milkdrinker," Ondolemar tried.

Rolff made a strangled noise, akin to a sabre-cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

Then, with a roar, he charged.

_Lovely._

\--O--

“Do you know the one thing I really can’t stand about Windhelm?”

“Your own company, I imagine, since you so readily seek out mine."

“Ouch," Ambarys said, glaring at Ondolemar, who was lounging heavy-eyed against the wall and looking better than he'd done in weeks, "Do they run classes for things like snide horribleness in the Summerset Isles, or is that just a gift you high elves are born with?”

“The latter, naturally. Assuming that by 'high elves' and 'the Summerset Isles', you mean Altmer and Alinor.”

“Snob.”

"That, too, is a gift that is inborn."

Ambarys glared at him for a bit, and then sighed deeply.

Ondolemar took a sip of water.

Ambarys sighed again, more loudly.

"Is something the matter, cousin?" Ondolemar asked, dryly.

"It is, actually. I was thinking, last night."

"Ah."

"And I was wondering," Ambarys pressed on, ignoring that, "Do you think we'll be forgotten when we die?"

"Morbid of you."

"Morbid is just something that happens when you're stuck watching eight hours' worth of snow elves getting their fingernails and toenails pulled off and jabbed through their eyes."

"Would you like me to knock you out?" Ondolemar said sympathetically.

"No. I'd like to offload and I'd like you to answer my question. Well?" Ambarys prodded, when Ondolemar did not immediately answer, "Do you?"

"Honestly? I think it highly likely both of us will be forgotten, given that I am killing the few friends I have left and you had none to begin with."

"I have friends, thank you very much!" Ambarys snapped, peeved, and it was sort of, maybe, mostly true, "Lots of them, and I have family, too! Malthyr thinks of me as an uncle! And... and..." Ambarys trailed off, eyes narrowing, because Ondolemar looked suspiciously like a mer who was trying not to smirk. "... You're baiting me, aren't you?"

"Perhaps," the high elf admitted.

"Well, stop it. I'm being _serious_ here."

"In all seriousness, then, once we are dead, I do not think it will make the slightest difference to us."

"... Well, _I_ think it would be nice to be remembered," Ambarys said firmly, clasping his hands loosely about his knees, "I don’t like the idea that when I die, Nirn will spin on and no one will care and I’ll just... be like those snow elves. Gone, forgotten by everyone."

"Self-evidently, Auri-El remembers them."

"...Yes," Ambarys allowed, "I suppose he does."

_But I'm a dark elf, not a snow elf._

_What chance is there that you'll remember me?_

\--O--

The gates fell with a Shout.

The dragon roared, furious, when Ulfric charged inside the keep, and he had a feeling from the ominous way the fortress shook seconds later that the dragon had just settled itself on top of the keep to wait for him. Well, he gave it points for tenacity. Talos willing though, he'd find the key somewhere in here to the back door Ondolemar had spoken of, and he would not need to contend with the beast again at all.

Galmar joined him, sprinting. Cahlad and Greta, too.

And then there was no time to worry about dragons.

There was only now, and Thalmor rising from tables, stepping out from doorways to the side and from bending corridors, casting spells and firing arrows and engaging Ulfric directly, steel on steel. Shouting worked to disorient them until it didn’t, because too many of Ulfric’s own men were in the way. Ulfric shouted orders, Galmar echoed them, and Thalmor did the same in a tongue Ulfric had never learned, and never would.

One Nord fell. Two.

The Thalmor dead outnumbered them, though.

Had Ulfric known how many of the high elves had been stationed here in the first place, he might have been able to guess if he was winning or losing.

“Surrender,” a Thalmor mage said, casting fireballs. “Surely even a _Nord_ can see that this attack of yours is nothing less than suicide.”

“Death will take me before you do," Ulfric promised him, "That, I swear by Talos.”

“Quaint, that you think your false-god is actually capable of accepting oaths," the mage scoffed, sneering. "Did you say the same thing to the First Emissary twenty years ago, I wonder?”

Master Arngeir, Ulfric thought distantly, would not have approved of the number of times Ulfric was Shouting today.

Three Nords down.

Ulfric beheaded the mage, stepped over his body, and pressed on.

\--O--

“Should we execute the prisoners?” Kinnariel asked.

A practical mer, she was not given to recriminations. Thus, instead of wasting time asking Auri-El just how it was that no less than seven Thalmor had fallen so far to a rag-tag rabble of poorly-trained heretics, or asking Auri-El why he’d just let her husband be beheaded, Kinnariel shot another Stormcloak expertly in the eye, and noted, practically, that no matter how many blows landed on Ulfric Stormcloak, he did not, unfortunately, seem to by dying.

Either he’d dosed himself with potions that accelerated his healing rate and boosted his magic resistance, or his false-god was looking after him more diligently than Auri-El seemed to be looking after Northwatch Keep at the moment. Either option, she felt, warranted action.

Commander Falathion, busy burning his more sensitive paperwork, ignored her.

Kinnariel repeated the question.

“Why in Oblivion would we?” Falathion demanded. “You don’t think we’re actually going to _lose_ to six Nords, do you?”

Kinnariel refrained, tactfully, from pointing out that only twenty Thalmor had been stationed here to begin with, and between the Nords and the dragon, ten of those were already dead. Instead, she allowed her gaze to flick down, pointedly, to the desk.

“I think there is a reason you are burning your paperwork, sir.”

“…”

“Of course, statistically speaking, if we allow the prisoners to live these Nords will be less likely to chase us.” 

Tellingly, Falathion hesitated.

“For what it’s worth, sir, I don’t think any of our blows are actually touching him,” Kinnariel said, clinically, as the renegade Jarl of Windhelm snapped an arrowhead off, wrenched the shaft from his thigh, and pressed on with a snarl. “Something, or someone, is protecting him. I think that fact is one we need to report, personally, to the First Emissary.”  _Before we are beheaded._

“You do?” Falathion said.

“I do.”

“… Alright,” Falathion said, scooping up the last of his paperwork, “I see the force of your argument. Though it pains me to leave our brothers and sisters to die here without me, I see I have no choice. I will go. For the glory of the Dominion!”

“For the glory of the Dominion,” Kinnariel echoed dutifully, and followed.

\--O--

Somewhere between losing Gareth and Olla, the Thalmor numbers began to thin. Ulfric drank healing potions like water until he was sick of the bitter-sweet taste of them, Shouted, and fought with the fury of a giant. The blood covered the floor. Bodies, limp as rag-dolls, lay scattered about the halls.

Too familiar, too unwelcome, the feel of this vile place.

(Focus. Focus. Focus.)

Advance. Swing. Block.

Lightning burned him. Ulfric Shouted down the next Thalmor, and the one after that, and cut them down before they could stand. Sometimes, he saw Elenwen in their faces, when he struck them down. Sometimes, he saw Ondolemar.

(You are thinking. Don't.)

He was in the prisons (when had he got there?) and an inquisitor was sending lightning at him instead of the Nord who hung limply from chaffed wrists that were manacled cruelly to the wall. Ulfric Shouted; the inquisitor blocked it with a ward, and then Galmar was at his side, matching him blow for blow, bleeding freely from a blow in his side.

“Drink a healing potion,” Ulfric heard himself say, roughly.

“When this one’s dead,” Galmar promised him.

“You nauseate me,” the inquisitor sneered, and Ulfric sidestepped too late, and gritted his teeth against a wave of too-familiar pain. "To think that the Dominion actually plans to treat with Nords like you is sickening."

"Comfort yourself with the knowledge that treating with your government is as a thought I find as sickening as you do," Ulfric snarled. "Your government is mad beyond belief if it truly thinks I will do anything with any emissary it sends me save cut off their head."

Oddly, the inquisitor laughed, sharp and cold.

"Care to share the jest, goldskin?" Galmar said, landing a powerful blow across the his chest.

The elf staggered, falling to one knee; his robes were wet with blood. Out of magic, Ulfric thought, clinically, or he'd have healed himself.

"I could share it, but--," a thin, bloodstained smile, "Sharing might ruin it, you see. And I think... I think, when I am in Aetherius, I am going to enjoy watching it play out, beneath me."

His eyes glittered madly, over-bright; Ulfric finished him with a clean blow through the heart.

(What had he known?)

Ulfric turned to the wall, and then-- because the Thalmor were dead or fled, and the sound of battle no longer rang throughout the halls-- Ulfric knelt, searching the dead elf for the key to the manacles that bound the tortured Nord to the wall.

“What is your name?” Ulfric said, because that was better than _"Did they break you?_  "

“… Thorald Gray-Mane.”

“I am Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, of Windhelm,” Ulfric said, standing, and unlocked the cuffs.

Thorald’s bark of laughter had something in it of hysteria.

“Funnily enough,” he said, standing, trembling, on wasted limbs, “I’d managed to work that out on my own. Have you a sword? These arms of mine aren’t as strong as they once were, but they’re not too weak to fight.”

Something warm and sick exploded inside.

(You got there in time.)

(You didn’t, for the rest of them.)

Cahlad, battered, bruised, knelt beside a woman, calling her cousin, who stared at the wall in front of her, eyes empty, telling him to leave and refusing to get up. A Nord pressed himself into a corner, whimpering, saying he needed to leave, desperately needed to, and flinched from Brena’s hands when she tried to turn him towards the open cell.

(You should have come sooner.)

“What’re you looking at?” the last prisoner, an Argonian sneered.

“You want in or out, lizard?” Galmar growled.

“In. I’m scheduled for a release in three days, you see, since after a week or two of their tender ministrations, they finally worked out I don’t worship your damned false-god.” A smile, white and sharp. “Not that _you’d_ care, of course, about legal processes, or what your petty war is doing to the rest of us who live in Skyrim.”

Ulfric slammed the door with more force than was strictly necessary, and locked it.

“What do we do, sir?” Cahlad said.

What had helped him, Ulfric wondered.

(Nothing. You let them bend you before they broke you this way.)

“Help them up, and get them to the boats.”

“They won’t stand.”

“Then carry them."

For the woman, that worked. For the man, it didn’t. Coaxing might have worked. Ulfric did not have time for such measures. He knocked the Nord out and passed him to Galmar.

“Get to the boats. I will wait ten minutes and join you.”

“… Aye. Best not attract the dragon if we can help it,” Galmar agreed, reluctantly.

Ulfric nodded. Waited, until the last of them had left.

The stench of blood was sickening.

The stench of ozone was worse.

(You are not in those cells. You are free.)

The Thalmor would return here. That was not acceptable. Hells like Northwatch Keep did not belong in this world.

Ulfric held a torch up against the door frame, calmly.

The door frame charred, refusing to burn, and the rage that filled him at that failure was as blinding as it was irrational. And then-- his boot touched something on the ground. A bottle of mead, its head broken, contents leaking out to mingle with the blood.

Mead.

_("We have a cellar full of it. Why? I never asked. It seemed self-evident that drinking it was a form of torture.")_

_We have a cellar full of it._

Six minutes left.

Two minutes later, Ulfric found it. The entrance was hidden near the bar, exactly where Ondolemar had said it would be.

(He didn't lie. You should be surprised.) 

Ulfric thrust that tiny, irritating voice aside.

“I intend to set fire to this place,” he said, to the Argonian, “Do you still wish to wait for that legal release of yours?”

“… Do you even care how ruthlessly they will hunt down any of us who escape?”

Ulfric didn't.

“Die now, Argonian, or die later. The choice is yours.”

“… Later,” the Argonian said, at last. “Also, for the record, Nord, I hate you.”

\--O--

The explosion, wholly unexpected, wholly unmerited, knocked Zeymahzeimzin off his perch and sent him rolling into the sky. It also sent half of the walls and most of the Keep itself crumbling into a rapidly-filling crater of water, courtesy of the Keep's proximity to the sea.

Zeymahzeimzin was peeved. The last time he’d fought enemies who’d liked doing things like this had been during the Merethic Era, when he’d hunted Dwemer.

Zeymahzeimzin hovered, raking the ground for any sign of movement.

Nothing.

There was nothing for the next five minutes, either, except the rippling of waves on the shoreline, and something that might have been a hawker disappearing beneath the water. In the distance though, Zeymahzeimzin noticed, more interestingly, a Frost Dragon he didn’t know having fun with a group of Imperial soldiers.

 _Meditate on the Way of the Voice_ , Kyne told him, tartly. _You, my errant servant, have much to answer for… assuming you do still consider yourself a servant of mine._

 _I do,_ Zeymahzeimzin assured her.

Alduin wasn’t back _yet_ , after all.

 _Then obey me, child of Akatosh, and meditate on your failings,_ Kyne said, waspishly.

Reluctantly, Zeymahzeimzin abandoned his vague, half-formed daydreams about burning those Imperials to death, flapped his wings, and began the slow, unrewarding journey southwest to Markarth.

\--O--

**~Two Hours Later**

“… So,” Einar said, to Avulstein.

“…” said Avulstein

Einar consulted his map again.

“It’s the right place,” Geirlund assured him.

“Are you sure?” Einar said, glancing down at the crater of rubble-strewn water, “Because I’ve been past Northwatch Keep before, and this doesn’t look like Northwatch Keep.”

“It’s Northwatch Keep.”

“You think the dragons got it?” Vidrald said, kicking a pebble.

“No,” Einar said, sidestepping the pebble.

“… I’ll tell you what,” Avulstein said, at last, “I’ve got sources in Solitude. Give me half a week; I’ll find out where the Thalmor bastards took my brother, and _then_ I’ll send you all another message with the _new_ meeting place on it, and all of us will try this again. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Einar, Vidrald, and Geirlund said.

What a waste of a morning, Einar thought, watching them leave.

Seating himself on a rock, (his horse, untethered, began chewing a patch of snowberries) he pulled out his journal and scribbled an entry.

_Northwatch Keep appears to have been destroyed. Odd. Now I must wait until Avulstein contacts me again, to find out where the Thalmor have taken Thorald Gray-Mane. He will have an answer for me in three days’ time._

Then, after a moment’s consideration, he also pulled out his map, and added a mark next to Northwatch Keep.

_* Cleared._


	47. The (Not So) Noble Art of Needling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda, obviously. Nothing is mine.

## The (Not So) Noble Art of Needling

Ulfric did not return on day five, or day six.

The days crawled on, monotonous and slow. Ondolemar mixed potions, cleared the sewers, taught Ambarys, and baited Rolff Stone-Fist.

The second time, Rolff did not need to be baited before he attacked.

The third time, by some stretch of Nordic logic Ondolemar did not understand, Ondolemar woke up on the porch of Candlehearth Hall instead of half-buried in a snowdrift, blue with frostbite. This was, Rolff slurred helpfully, three parts disguised, because he himself baited people deliberately all the time because brawling was fun, and so recognised this trait when he saw it in other people, "even'f you are a bastard goldskin."

Ondolemar, busy warming his hands above the brazier, decided he'd think up a suitable slur later to counter that slight.

"Y'shouldn't hold back though. Holdin' back's  _cheating_."

Oblivion take the wretched brat.

"There has been no word from your brother?" Ondolemar said, when Rolff seemed inclined to brood.

"Nope. Wouldn't tell you'f there was."

"Delinquent pest."

Somehow, things devolved further from this already low point.

Rolff muttered something about Thalmor being milkdrinkers. Ondolemar, who also recognised baiting when he saw it, decided he too could be generous, and punched him. A short, undignified scuffle followed. Things might have gone differently had Rolff not been dead drunk. He was, though, and so before long he ended up out cold on the ground, and Ondolemar, Auri-El knew why, ended up hoisting the heavy little bastard up and staggering into the candle-strewn, mead-soaked excuse for an inn behind them. 

"We don't serve Thalmor here," a grim-faced woman said, glaring.

Ondolemar deposited Rolff into a chair and turned to face her, sneering.

"We are in accord then, since Thalmor do not stoop to being served in places like this."

The woman bristled.

"Out, elf."

"You do not intend to escort him to a room?"

"It's been two weeks since he paid his tab, so no. That chair suits him just fine."

It did. It was a comfortable, warm chair in front of a comfortable, warm hearth, and if Rolff had chosen to drink his allowance away and spend the night brawling instead of hiring himself a room, that was Rolff's problem not Ondolemar's. Ondolemar shrugged, nodded, and strode from the room.

"I can't believe," Ambarys hissed hatefully, later, "that you are drawing on your account to pay for _that delinquent bastard_ when he  _still_ hasn't  _fixed my window!_ "

"The feeling is mutual, cousin. I cannot believe that you are risking pneumonia for one 'sorry' and five gold pieces." 

Ambarys threw the dishcloth at him.

\--O--

Ulfric did not dream. This was because Ulfric did not sleep.

"Have you room at your side for a Nord who can't lift so much as a sack of wheat right now?" Thorald Gray-Mane grinned, sharp and fierce, part way into the second night of rowing.

The tone was right, but there was something sick and dead behind his eyes. Ulfric saw it, but Ulfric did not speak of it. It struck too near to home.

"I have room at my side for any Nord with courage enough to swing steel and shed blood for Talos and for freedom."

\--O--

“Do you stock spell tomes here?” Ondolemar said, lounging against the door frame of Wuunferth the Unliving’s laboratory, on day eight.

Wuunferth the Unliving, busy casting what looked like scrying spells, ignored him. Fair, but unhelpful.

“Specifically, I am looking for a spell tome for healing targets who are not myself,” Ondolemar continued, glancing at the collection of soul gems, garments, books and potions that dotted the tables and walls.

Wuunferth muttered something beneath his breath about Jorleif, Jorleif’s parents, the sorry state of things these days, and Thalmor being allowed to wander willy-nilly all over the palace.

“A lamentable state of affairs," Ondolemar agreed, sympathetically. "Still, since I would undoubtedly have executed myself had I been in charge of Windhelm's security, I am doing my best to tolerate the way your Jarl runs things here. And it occurred to me, on that note--,"

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little _busy_ just now.”

“I had assumed that a mage of your experience was capable of multitasking.”

Wuunferth the Unliving glowered fiercely at Ondolemar from beneath thick grey brows. Again, Ondolemar sympathised.

“I am,” Wuunferth snapped, eventually. “And I do. But I don’t sell to Thalmor. You lot do enough damage with the spells you do know without learning more of them.”

“The tome I seek is for healing, not harming,” Ondolemar pointed out mildly.

“A spell which happens to be one of the most popular spells for torturers and interrogators in every province in Tamriel. As you well know.”

Ondolemar did, unfortunately. His lips thinned.

“Such is not my profession. Were I trained in that art, I would know that spell already.”

"High elves are a versatile lot. There's no telling when you'll choose to switch jobs."

"Do I _look_ like a mer who is wandering about seeking targets to practice tormenting, wizard?" Ondolemar snapped.

"No, but then, neither did poor Calixto."

Ondolemar’s lips thinned into nonexistence. Not just a murderer, but a necromancer? The idea was insulting. The mere possibility that he _could_ be thought of in such a light was insulting.

“Exactly,” Wuunferth said, misinterpreting his silence. “Now get out, or I’ll have the guards throw you out.”

“They are busy fighting a dragon, just at present.”

“… At least that explains why you’re up here bothering me,” Wuunferth grunted at last. “Well, if they can't throw you out, I will.”

"A more intimidating prospect," Ondolemar allowed.

"Thank you. I like to think my reputation is well-earned," Wuunferth said, opening a closet and plucking a staff from it. “The exit is that way. I won’t warn you again.”

Unwise, staying. And yet--

“A duel, wizard,” Ondolemar bargained, not moving. “Magic, and magic alone. If I defeat you, that tome is mine.”

A calculating glint appeared in Wuunferth’s eyes. Auri-El be praised, not that he'd had anything to do with it, for the universal competitiveness of the average Nord.

“And if you do not?”

“If I do not, then… you will have to help me, old man. What _do_ you want from me, in the unlikely event that I do not defeat you?”

Wuunferth the Unliving gave the matter a moment's consideration.

“Lessons in Aldmeri.”

" _A_ lesson, unless you are proposing to offer me multiple spell tomes."

"Your need is the greater. It is fair that you offer more."

"My need is not so great that I cannot afford to send a courier off to Ancano in Winterhold for it, however."

Wuunferth considered that for a while.

"Fair enough, Ondolemar of Alinor. But when I win, _I_ will choose what the lesson covers."

"If, my ascetic enemy," Ondolemar countered. _"If."_

\--O--

"The match is invalid," Wuunferth growled, sweating.

"A duel between mages is not invalid just because one of them slips a disc trying to cram his staff inside his overstocked closet," Ondolemar sniffed, admiring the fire dancing at his fingertips, "But I will be generous. Give me that spell tome, and I will heal your back for free."

There was a long, painful moment of consideration.

"You could always try the local healer, of course. I am sure somewhere between healing broken limbs, lacerated flesh and dragon frostburn, they will have time to slot your back in if you ask them very nicely."

"... If you botch the job," Wuunferth snapped, plucking a tome from the far wall and tossing it at him, "Then by Magnus, I'll make you _regret_ it."

\--O--

Ulfric arrived in Windhelm nine days after he'd left it.

He arrived to the sound of scattered cheering, from those of his subjects who had known of his absence, and to murmurs of disbelief and budding awe, from those who had not. Rumors spread like wildfire. Northwatch Keep had fallen. The collective noses of the Thalmor had been bloodied well. The Thalmor cowered, hiding, too terrified to think of revenge.

Ulfric's strength lasted through the throne room and through the victory celebration.

Cahlad applied for leave to look after his cousin. Ulfric granted it. The nameless Nord, Ulfric left with the healers. Perhaps, in time, he would remember who he was. Thorald Gray-Mane insisted he was well enough to train with the rest of the men, and since he could lift a sword and hold a shield, Ulfric hadn't refused him. Pride was Thorald's shield; Ulfric would not strip it from him by voicing aloud the fact that the dead, flat look behind his eyes that turned to fear, to fury, when someone approached him too quickly from behind, was a weakness unacceptable in war.

He accepted children. He accepted farmers.

Thorald would get better, as Ulfric had, or Thorald would die and rest in Sovngarde.

 _Be the former_ , Ulfric willed, silently.  _Y_ _ou did not break for them then._ _Do not break for the memory of them now._

\--O--

Thorald Gray-Mane was no soldier, but the Stormcloaks, he discovered, weren't an army. They were a rabble of brothers, sisters, and friends, who shared food and mead, who'd lost family to Northwatch Keep and who laughed off the broken noses he gave them in sparring matches when he forgot that they weren't elves. He still woke screaming, most nights, but he didn't feel, as he might have felt in front of Avulstein, that those screams needed to be choked into silence by walls of pillow and pelt. 

"My cousin broke," one man said, the first night. "They let him go. Hides beneath the blankets whenever thunderstorms come. Damned elves."

A general chorus of damned elves echoed it.

Thorald could not speak of the months he'd spent in that place, not yet. But he wondered if maybe, just maybe, when he did, his own tongue would not see him damned.

\--O--

“Rumor is there's a Thalmor in the dungeons,” Thorald said stiffly, approaching the throne.

Ulfric slouched on his throne, eyes distant, his chin resting on one hand.

“There is."

Not a lie then. Thorald steeled himself, accepting it, and nodded.

“When is he going to die?”

Something flickered in Ulfric's eyes. Ulfric’s free hand shifted, fingers tapping idly on the armrest of his throne.

“His execution has not been scheduled. Not yet.”

The vague, empty hope that somehow, impossibly, Ulfric hadn’t known what was happening ten meters beneath his throne room flickered and died.

“Who is he?” Thorald forced out, thickly.

“Ondolemar. If he has a last name, I've yet to learn it. Before Markarth fell, he was the High Justiciar of Skyrim.”

Not just a Justiciar, but a High Justiciar? Not just the one who escorted, but the one who consigned Nords to the hell that was Northwatch Keep? A thousand memories, a thousand torments, swam before him. He did not sway-- he was no milkdrinker, not yet-- but his hands felt clammy inside his gloves, and all the blood in him seemed to have drained into his feet.

“Why aren’t you killing him?”

Dangerous, such disrespect, but Thorald was a Gray-Mane, and Ulfric was not chiding him for it. 

“Because he no longer supports the Aldmeri Dominion, Thorald Gray-Mane, and the information he has is useful to me.”

Good, tactical sense, and yet the logic of it slipped through him as water through a sieve.

“You saw what they did there. He--," a rough, jagged pause, where Thorald needed to breathe, before he could manage, "But his information is enough to make you _overlook--,”_

“That elf is the reason we found you,” Ulfric cut him off, and his voice was firm as stone, and unyielding as steel. “Without his intelligence, I would not have risked such an assault with so few men. Northwatch Keep would yet stand. You would yet suffer there. So yes, his information and his counsel are indeed enough to make me overlook a great many crimes, any one of which ought to have earned the wretch a swift, brutal beheading.”

Thorald’s fists clenched, loosened, and clenched again.

"His counsel," he echoed.

"Yes," Ulfric said. And then: "I know your fear, Thorald. His kind are ever insidious, and since the Great War they have grown more so. But rest assured, I am no puppet. We walk a shared path for now, that is all. And on that path, it is he who yields to my will, not I to his. Northwatch, not Windhelm, fell. His kin perished, not mine."

"I--," words choked him. Thorald swallowed them back, and tried again. "What information does he have now? Northwatch has fallen." 

Again, Ulfric’s hand tapped idly against his throne.

"Little, perhaps. But there is a truce between us, he and I. I gained Northwatch. He, time. Until that time is done, by my word, I will not kill or maim him, or tolerate you doing so. I do not blame you for your desires. They are natural and well-earned. Nevertheless, I ask you for your restraint. If such is beyond your strength, tell me now, clearly, and I will transfer you to another hold.”

No other hold had Ulfric Stormcloak. No other hold had a leader who could take ten men and make of Northwatch Keep a wet, gaping hole in the ground. Sick, craven fear clawed at Thorald’s gut.

He laughed, a trifle unsteadily.

_Coward. Coward. Coward._

“I’ll not kill him,” Thorald said, when he could. “You're my Jarl. Your word is the word of Windhelm. I'm not so far gone yet that I'd break it just to slake my own thirst for vengeance.”

_Aren’t you?_

Ulfric’s eyes said he saw more than Thorald wanted him to. He smiled though anyway, as if he trusted, as if he believed that Thorald indeed wasn’t that far gone, as if he felt that Thorald’s word was good enough to take at face value without any threats to tie it in place. As if he felt-- an odd, hot pain, somewhere near Thorald’s heart-- as if he felt, even after rescuing him, that Thorald was still a Nord worth respecting.

_You don’t know the truth, though._

_You don’t know how near I came each day to renouncing Talos._

_You felt the pain of prison after Markarth, I know, but do you know what they made us live through in Northwatch Keep?_

_Can you even imagine how cruel the goldskinned elves can be?_

That night, Thorald visited the dungeon. 

Cold, stale blood, moldy straw. Too familiar. A mistake, coming here, but pride would not let him turn back.

Footstep by slow, deliberate footstep, he drew near the only occupied cell.

Its occupant was sitting against the wall, temptingly within reach of strangulation, eyes shut.

Thorald swallowed, thought of his inevitable transfer, and tasted scorn.

“So,” he said, roughly. “You’re the spy.”

The high elf opened his eyes and glanced at him disdainfully, and for all that he wore plain, quilted fabrics instead of close-fitting robes, for all that he was locked behind bars of iron, for all that his eyes were grass-green instead of flat, metallic gold, for all he was _Justiciar,_ not _Inquisitor,_ the high elf _still_ _looked_ _like them_ , still _moved_ like them and Thorald could not stop his body from tensing.

“Spy,” the high elf said, clipped, cold, “Is an unfair term, don’t you think?”

Thorald focused on breathing.

“You don’t, of course,” the high elf sneered. “The subtleties of language are, alas, beyond a Nord like yourself. Let me assure you, however, that there is a distinction being a spy-- which I am not-- and being a traitor-- which, regrettably, I am.”

This? This was who Ulfric Stormcloak had trusted enough to risk his life on a blind assault of Northwatch Keep? This-- this sneering, remorseless-- Thorald heard a strangled sound that might have been laughter, and realised, belatedly, that the throat it had come from was his own.

“You are from Northwatch Keep, I take it,” the elf said then, with a piercing look, and his words, his _tone_ , were as acid on an open wound. “I’m tempted to ask just why you sought me out when you are so obviously frail just now, but I will not. You are wearing Stormcloak armor, so I shall tell myself you passed whatever psychological test you were put through to confirm your suitability for duty, and undoubtedly have some rational reason that eludes me for why it was imperative that you to seek out a Thalmor so soon after your escape from the tender ministrations of my kin.”

Every smooth, mocking word grated. Had the bars not stood between them--

They did, though. He wanted the key. He wanted it so that he could _hurt_ this careless, sneering _monster_. He would not get it. He knew that with absolute certainty, and the weight of it sat in his stomach like a stone. Even if he promised to hurt only, not maim, not kill, he would not get it.

“You disgust me,” he forced out, thick with hate. “It would not be enough were you to beg for forgiveness on your _knees_. But this-- this… do you even know what _your kin_ do to us in there?”

“Obviously,” the high elf said, gaze flat.

One word. Four syllables. Four syllables, from the elf Ulfric trusted, and the air was so thin down here that Thorald could scarcely breathe. And yet, he waited. Waited for something, Talos knew what. A sign of why Ulfric trusted this elf? A sign of why the elf had become a traitor? Pity? Humanity?

"If you are hoping for an apology for your unfair suffering, you will wait in vain."

"If you're not sorry, elf, then why did you turn traitor?" he snarled.

"Are you hoping I will tell you that deep within my chest beats a soft, bleeding heart, filled with love and warmth for your race? That the thought of a handful of men being electrocuted for two or three hours a day for the crime of worshiping a god who ought never to have been deified in the first place was enough to move my soft, gentle heart to pity?"

"Do not mock me, elf."

The elf's lip curled, thin and sharp.

"If you do not care for my mockery, the exit to the jail lies that way."

"I'll go when I want to, elf, and not one minute before."

The high elf shrugged carelessly.

"As you will. But if it is remorse that you stay for, know now you will not find it in me. If I have erred as much as I think I have erred, _you_ are so far down the list of things I need to wallow in guilt about that the sight of you does not even make my conscience twinge.”

Words stuck in his throat, choking him.

“I will kill you,” he managed, far too late.

A slim, gold-tinted hand waved dismissively.

“You will find, I think, that there is a line you will need to wait in for that privilege. But you are certainly welcome to try, once the truce I have with your Jarl is done… until then, however,” a cold edge crept into the high elf’s voice, and Thorald hated it, hated himself for the instinctive bite of fear he felt hearing it, “Know that if you do think of lifting aught but your fists against me, I will defend myself with magic.”

_Damn you. Damn you. Damn you._

“I don’t _need_ more than my fists to kill you, goldskin."

The high elf didn’t bother replying. Thorald turned, and told himself he’d had the last word, and that his leaving was victory, not retreat.

\--O--

"Where is Cahlad?" Ondolemar asked, when Ulfric visited him.

"Tending to his cousin."

"... Ah. She lived, did she?"

"I would not call it living, elf."

An unhappy look, swiftly veiled, flickered across the elf's face.

Remorse? Shame?

Then:

"I assume that means I must bid my hot meals in Sifnar's kitchen a permanent farewell?"

"Sometimes," Ulfric informed the high elf, settling himself onto his stool with a sigh, "I find myself wondering how you have survived wandering freely through my streets in broad daylight without being beaten to death by everyone who stopped to have a conversation with you."

\--O--

Secretly, Thorald watched the high elf.

A vicious, petty part of him was satisfied with the sight of the elf shoveling filth. He belonged knee-deep in snow and sewage. The elf didn’t seem shamed though. He wielded his shovel like a soldier who’d been assigned latrine duty for years, and the greyskin chattering to him brought him mulled wine at the end of it like he deserved to be rewarded.

Thorald felt... cheated.

“He looks awfully unfriendly,” the greyskin's voice drifted across, accompanied by a nod his direction.

Thorald flushed deeply, gritting his teeth. Damned elves and their damned eyesight. He refused to slink away like a coward, but nor would he go closer. He stood, glaring, like a fool. After a moment or two, the high elf flicked a dismissive look at him.

“Ignore him, Ambarys,” the high elf said, turning back. “He is from Northwatch. Understandably, he is upset about the fact that I exist.”

The greyskin winced.

“Have you said you're sorry about all that?”

The high elf did not reply. He must have sent the greyskin a look of some sort though, because the other elf huffed and said, “I'm just saying that you _should._ Before he tears my Cornerclub apart because you stepped in it, preferably. And there’s no need to look at me like that, cousin! I’m not asking you to _mean_ it. You lie daily on a regular basis just to annoy me. Would it kill you to lie to make my day slightly less horrible?”

Apparently it would, because the high elf didn’t. Well, it made no difference. Even if he had been genuinely sorry, Thorald wouldn’t have accepted it. Sorry did not change the past. Sorry did not restore the dead to life. Sorry did not erase the months Thorald’s mother had spent worrying about his safety, or change the fact that he couldn’t visit her. Sorry did not take back the sting of  _you are so far down the list you are not worth wasting remorse upon._

Soon, the elf would slip.

Soon, the elf would drop this careless, sneering pretense of compliance and expose himself for the treacherous, scheming viper that he was. And when he did, Thorald would be there, waiting.

 


End file.
